A COWARDLY killer who used his two-tonne four-wheel-drive as a weapon and ran over a defenceless father-of-six from behind in the Cessnock Waste Management Centre has launched an appeal to the state's highest court in a bid to get his jail term reduced.
Adam Andrew Bidner, 34, of Aberdare, used his Toyota Landcruiser to run down and drive over his rival, Shane Mears, while the pair were scavenging for scrap metal at the Cessnock tip on the afternoon of July 5, 2020.
Bidner then fled, leaving Mr Mears for dead and began formulating a plan to avoid being implicated in the cowardly and gruesome attack.
He cleaned his car, changed the tyres and even offered his sympathy to Mr Mears' daughter for the loss of her father.
He was later jailed for a maximum of 24 years and eight months, with a non-parole period of 18 years, a judge labelling Bidner's actions on that day a "cowardly act" and finding he was not provoked into the attack or truly remorseful for taking the 54-year-old's life.
The sentence means Bidner will not be eligible for parole until March, 2040, at the age of 50.
But Bidner has since lodged an appeal against the severity of the sentence, with the matter on Thursday mentioned for the first time in the Court of Criminal Appeal and set down for a 90-minute appeal on September 18.
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 scavenging for scrap metal in the Cessnock Waste Management Centre on the afternoon of July 5, 2020.
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 furious with Bidner.
After Mr Mears had offered to fight Bidner a number of times over the next 12 months, 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 reversed 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.
Justice Helen Wilson found the pair both being there on that afternoon was entirely coincidental and Bidner had decided to "spontaneously and opportunistically" run over Mr Mears before the pair had even spoken a word to each other.
Justice Wilson found there was no evidence Mr Mears even knew Bidner was at the tip before he was reversed over and had not provoked the attack, finding the history of animosity provided a background to the attack but did not mitigate it.
Mr Mears's 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.
