Coroner & Legal
Tim Ellis, Tasmanian DPP, loses death by negligent driving appeal
Tasmania’s top prosecutor has lost an appeal against his conviction for causing the death of a woman in a head-on crash due to negligent driving.
Tim Ellis was convicted in June over the death of Natalia Pearn who was killed in the accident on Tasmania’s Midland Highway last year.
Rejecting the appeal in Hobart’s Supreme Court, Justice David Harper said Magistrate Chris Webster was justified in finding Ellis guilty.
“I am of the opinion that this finding was inevitable and that each element of the charge was proven beyond reasonable doubt,” he said.
Ellis’s lawyers had put forward more than 20 grounds of appeal, including that Mr Webster had made errors.
Ellis maintained he was not awake when he drove in the wrong lane of the highway near Oatlands, killing the 27-year-old Launceston woman.