A MAN who ran over a defenceless rival from behind in the Cessnock Waste Management Centre in 2020 has "recycled" his letter of remorse, ripping off - in some parts word-for-word - a letter he previously wrote to the court over a brutal axe handle attack.
The revelation came in Newcastle Supreme Court on Friday as members of Shane Mears' family read powerful victim impact statements during the sentence hearing for his killer, Adam Andrew Bidner.
Mr Mears' ex-wife, Tracey Mears, and their daughters, Lee-Alice and Shayna, said the 54-year-old was a "protector", a proud father and a loving grandfather and they would forever be "tormented" by how tragically he was taken away from them.
"Your parents teach you everything throughout life, but not how to live without them," Shayna Mears said. "My life has been turned upside down since his death and I am missing half of who I am."
Tracey Mears said hearing the news of the 54-year-old's death from detectives and having to inform their children broke her heart.
"Having to tell the family that Shane had been run over and left to die from horrific injuries, at a rubbish tip of all places, was absolutely devastating," she said. "That is the picture our family is left with. "My family still wonders if their father suffered for long. What were his final thoughts on that day. We'll never know but we'll always wonder."
Lee-Alice Mears said her father was "the best person I've ever met" and the fact he wouldn't get to meet his new grandchildren "destroys me on a daily basis".
Bidner and Mr Mears had been involved in an ongoing feud for more than a year when Mr Mears was run down from behind while looking for scrap metal in the Cessnock tip on the afternoon of July 5, 2020.
Crown prosecutor Brian 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 struck Mr Mears' friend six times with a pick axe handle.
The altercation was filmed and the video circulated around Cessnock before Mr Mears saw it and became angry with Bidner.
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 tip.
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.
No one saw what happened, but at some point Bidner deliberately drove his Landcruiser at Mr Mears, striking him from behind, knocking him to the ground and then driving up and over his body until one tyre was resting on his shoulder and neck.
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.
Meanwhile, Bidner was speeding away and putting in place a plan to avoid being implicated in Mr Mears' death.
On Friday, Mr Costello read aloud a letter Bidner wrote to the court in relation to Mr Mears' murder and noted the expressions of remorse where "verbatim" to another letter he wrote as part of his sentence proceedings for the axe handle attack.
"It must have been a transcription of that first letter and calls into question the genuineness of the remorse," Mr Costello said. "He has essentially recycled the remorse and the Crown position is that you would reject his expressions of remorse."
Mr Hobart submitted Bidner should be given some credit for his guilty plea, the fact the murder was not pre-planned and what he called "slight provocation" in relation to Mr Mears' threats.
He said that when Bidner saw Mr Mears in the tip on that afternoon, "[Bidner] saw it as an opportunity to carry out retribution for some of the humiliation that he had suffered where he had been threatened to fight and run away".
"He had been humiliated by the deceased, which seems to me the reason why he decided to exact revenge," Mr Hobart said.
Mr Hobart also said Bidner's drug use from an early age, which he said was linked to his troubled upbringing, mitigated the offending somewhat and the sentence should give him some hope for the future.
Bidner will be sentenced on Thursday.
