Two police officers have recounted the horror of being mowed down by a car, with one describing the terror she felt when the driver then hopped out and walked towards her.
"He said nothing, however I will never forget his face," Constable Melanie Miller wrote in a victim impact statement.
"Cold with no emotion. His eyes looked at me as if I was an insect."
Constable Miller's statement has been tendered to the ACT Supreme Court, where dozens of her fellow police officers filled the public gallery as the driver, Thomas Matthews, faced a sentence hearing on Friday.
The newly minted officer was working just her fourth shift with ACT Policing when she and two colleagues were hit by a Ford Laser on Lady Denman Drive, near the National Arboretum, in July 2021.
Behind the wheel was Matthews, a mentally ill Hawker man who ultimately pleaded guilty to two counts of causing grievous bodily harm by a negligent act.
The court heard Matthews, who has schizophrenia, had been inappropriately medicated and was experiencing blurred vision when he saw a police car by the side of the road.
Chief Justice Lucy McCallum said reports indicated Matthews, 32, "was concerned he would do something stupid in front of the police", so he decided he should pull over.
Prosecutor Anthony Williamson SC said Matthews accordingly swerved off the road "quite egregiously", striking the officers, who were performing traffic duties, in an "extremely poorly executed" effort to stop.
Mr Williamson told the court it was not alleged that Matthews, who applied his vehicle's brakes with maximum force prior to the impact, had deliberately hit the trio.
While Constable Miller miraculously escaped with relatively minor physical injuries, Constable Alyce Mueck sustained a broken leg after Matthews' car pinned her to the road.
Detective Leading Senior Constable Alun Mills, who had been training the other officers, ended up with a spinal fracture after his head hit Matthews' windshield and he was thrown to the road.
In her statement, Constable Miller described "the sickening realisation" that she was alone after the impact as she got back to her feet while her colleagues lay injured on the ground.
She drew her gun and pointed it towards Matthews, while "terrified" he may run at her instead of obeying her direction to get on the ground.
Matthews eventually complied, and Detective Leading Senior Constable Mills managed to crawl across and handcuff him as the sound of Constable Mueck's screams filled the air.
Detective Leading Senior Constable Mills, a police officer with 34 years of experience, also wrote an impact statement that detailed how his world was "upended" by the incident.
He has become hyper vigilant and is now contemplating the possibility of his policing career being over, having been placed on sick leave late last year after his mental health declined to the point he almost felt sick just putting on his uniform.
This, he wrote, has left him feeling as though his identity and self-worth has been stolen.
"I am not the same person anymore and doubt I ever will be," Detective Leading Senior Constable Mills wrote.
Chief Justice McCallum had intended to decide Matthews' fate on Friday, but she delayed the imposition of his sentence until next Tuesday in order to consider a new report and further submissions from Mr Williamson and defence counsel Jack Pappas.
Matthews spent more than 16 months behind bars on remand after his arrest.
He initially faced three counts of attempted murder but those charges were dropped last November, when he was granted bail.
