Killer driver blew .243
By COURTNEY WALSH
21aug03
A MAN yesterday admitted killing a retired accountant in a head-on collision while driving drunk on the wrong side of a highway after a wild bucks' night.
Simon Gareth Howlett had a blood-alcohol level of .243 and was speaking on a mobile phone when he smashed into Richard Fowler's car on the Western Highway, near Ballarat, in 2001.
Mr Fowler, 62, and his wife Pamela were driving home to Ararat from Melbourne when Howlett's car hit them as they rounded a bend about 1.20am on September 23, 2001.
Mr Fowler was killed instantly and Mrs Fowler -- who lost her daughter 17 years earlier in a car accident -- was seriously injured.
Prosecutor Jim Bessell told the County Court in Ballarat yesterday Howlett narrowly missed colliding head-on with two other cars -- one carrying a family of six -- minutes before the accident.
One driver, Peter Ross, told police he feared Howlett would kill his wife and four children.
"It (Howlett's car) was coming straight at us . . . obviously the driver of the car was affected by something or was on a suicide mission," he said.
Howlett 33, of Walker St, Brunswick West, yesterday pleaded guilty to culpable driving causing death, two charges of reckless driving endangering life and a count of reckless driving causing serious injury.
Mr Bessell said Howlett had been drinking for at least 10 hours at a bucks' party he organised the day before the crash.
He said the bucks group used a mini-bus to pub-crawl from Beaufort to Ballarat's Park View Hotel about 5.30pm.
Mr Bessell said three friends, who had been to the local football, drove Howlett's car to the Park View and handed him the keys.
Howlett left his car at the pub and continued celebrations at Extremities night club and the Thirsty Dog, where he drank five glasses of spirits in 40 minutes before catching a taxi to his car.
Mr Bessell said Howlett decided to drive to Melbourne to see his girlfriend and was speaking to her on his mobile phone at the time of the crash.
In a statement tendered to the court, Howlett's girlfriend said she pleaded with him to pull over and had said she would drive to Ballarat.
Howlett, a mortgage financier who grew up in Beaufort, apologised emotionally in court yesterday for his actions.
"Of course this has been a pain and hurt that I have caused to the other families involved and also to my own family," he said.
Howlett's mother, brother, four school friends, teachers, teammates and employers told the court he was a man of outstanding character who was deeply remorseful.
He was in tears as he listened to evidence from former teacher Robert Maston, who said Howlett took his disabled son Travis under his wing by involving him in his basketball team. "Travis was really pleased that someone would care for him . . . particularly a fellow student," he said.
Judge Julie Nicholson described the case as tragic but said it was lucky more people were not killed.
"It is a disgrace. (Howlett) will live with it for the rest of his life, but Mrs Fowler and her son have lost a husband and father," she said.
She released Howlett on bail to appear for sentencing in the County Court in Melbourne next month.
Outside court Mr Fowler's son Iestyn said his mother still suffered physical and emotional trauma.
"I am not after vengeance. People just have to remember there are serious consequences," he said.
"He took my father and mother away and it is also a loss for their own community."
From:
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,7015641%5E2862,00.html
