In a stunning reversal only a few days into his trial, Adam Bidner on Monday morning pleaded guilty to murder over the Cessnock tip death of a rival scrap metal scavenger, admitting he was the man behind the wheel of a four-wheel-drive that ran over 54-year-old Shane Mears.
Bidner's defence, it seemed, was that there was no evidence linking him to Mr Mears's death.
But on Thursday, his barrister, Mark Hobart, SC, indicated Bidner would change his plea to guilty of murder.
Then, by Friday, it appeared Bidner had again changed his mind. He wanted the weekend to think about it, Mr Hobart told Justice Helen Wilson, who was, unsurprisingly, none too pleased.
Ultimately, after taking a few days to consider his position, Bidner was re-arraigned on Monday morning and pleaded guilty to murder after the DPP agreed there would be no further proceedings on the charge of failing to stop and assist after Mr Mears's death.
The jury were then discharged after hearing only opening addresses and a few witnesses.
Bidner will now face a sentence hearing in April.
Bidner and Mr Mears had been involved in an ongoing feud for more than a year when Mr Mears was run down from behind by a vehicle while scavenging for scrap metal in the Cessnock Waste Management Centre on the afternoon of July 5, 2020, Crown prosecutor Brian Costello said during his opening address last week.
And Mr Costello said the day before Mr Mears was killed, he was allegedly threatened by three men, including Bidner, who told him: "I'm going to end you Mearsey and you won't even see it coming."
Mr Costello said Mr Mears was "sufficiently concerned" by the alleged threat to the extent that he told a friend: "If anything happens to me, look at those men."
"The very next day he was killed," Mr Costello told the jury. "And it is the Crown case that it was the accused who killed him."
Mr Costello said the feud and "ongoing animosity" between Bidner and Mr Mears stemmed from an altercation between Bidner and one of Mr Mears' friends in April, 2019, during which Bidner was armed with a wooden object and Mr Mears' friend was injured.
The altercation was filmed and the video circulated around Cessnock before Mr Mears saw it and became angry with Bidner, Mr Costello said.
After Mr Mears had offered to fight Bidner a number of times over the next 12 months, Mr Costello said the feud came to a head inside the Cessnock Waste Management Centre.
Using bushtracks and holes in the fence, Bidner, Mr Mears and four others had snuck into the tip after hours on the afternoon of July 5, 2020, to scavenge for scrap metal.
Mr Costello said no one, other than the driver of the car that struck Mr Mears, saw what happened, but it was the prosecution case that Bidner was behind the wheel of his Toyota Landcruiser when he deliberately ran over Mr Mears from behind.
"It is the Crown case that the accused deliberately drove his vehicle into and partly over Mr Mears," Mr Costello said. "Striking him from behind, knocking him to the ground and then driving up and over his body until one of the tyres was resting on his shoulder and neck area."
Mr Costello said Mr Mears' friend found him lying face down in the dirt with a tyre track across his back at 5.03pm and called for help.
And Mr Costello said that after striking Mr Mears with his car, Bidner "left him for dead".
"He offered no help, did not call for emergency services and fled the area," Mr Costello said. "He then concealed the vehicle and set about cleaning and disguising it."
Bidner's barrister had opened to the jury by pointing out there was no DNA or blood found on Bidner's car that would link it to Mr Mears's death and that the tyres found on the car did not match the tyre marks found on the 54-year-old's shirt.
But by Thursday morning it appeared that the evidence pointing to Bidner being the man behind the wheel of the car that so callously ran down Mr Mears had become insurmountable.
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