A MAN who left New Zealand helicopter pilot and firefighter Ian Pullen for dead after hitting him with his car outside Singleton will be out of jail in less than 12 months.
Joshua Knight, now 31, was on Tuesday jailed for a maximum of three years and two months, with a non-parole period of two years and four months after he pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of the fatal crash at Glenridding in September, 2018.
With time served, Knight will be eligible for release in June, 2023.
Mr Pullen's wife and mother read emotive victim impact statements in Newcastle District Court on Tuesday, attempting to outline how Knight's callous actions had changed the lives of so many.
"You didn't just kill Ian Pullen the day you ran him over, you killed a major part of me," Mr Pullen's wife, Vicki Pullen, said.
"Ian had been apart of my life for 25 years. We had been together longer than we had been apart. I was his best friend. I stood by him and raised our children while he became the acclaimed and respected pilot he was.
"All of that was destroyed on September 29, 2018. You destroyed that. Over the past three-and-a-half years I have had to pick up the pieces that you took away from me."
Initially charged with murder over the death of Mr Pullen, the charges were reduced after a forensic pathologist opined Mr Pullen - who was walking from the pub back to his accommodation after only hours earlier arriving in Australia - would have died within half-an-hour of being knocked down, with or without medical assistance.
But Knight - who was driving the Toyota HiLux that hit Mr Pullen - and Nicole Mason - one of Knight's passengers - didn't know that.
When they got out of the car to check on a badly injured Mr Pullen, he was still alive.
But instead of trying to offer him medical assistance or call triple-zero, the pair left the scene.
Then Knight did everything he could to conceal what he had done.
Later on the day Mr Pullen was hit and killed, Knight fled from police in a pursuit and then hid his car at a number of houses.
A few days later, Knight intentionally drove his car into the fence at the Singleton Rugby Club in order to provide an alternative explanation for the damage it sustained when he struck Mr Pullen.
"Unfortunately any assistance that had been rendered would not have assisted Mr Pullen, given the severity of the injuries," Judge Roy Ellis said on Tuesday.
"But there is no doubt that his conduct in simply driving off leaving this man seriously injured on the side of the road was morally reprehensible."
Judge Ellis said while Knight was no longer charged with causing Mr Pullen's death, leaving the scene and doing everything to avoid detection meant the impact of Mr Pullen's death had hung over the head of his family for nearly four years.
When they were finally arrested, after two years of appeals for public information and a $350,000 reward, Knight and Mason were initially charged with murder, police alleging Knight had hit Mr Pullen with his HiLux and then fled the scene before returning with Mason, who got out and "finished the job", striking Mr Pullen in the head with an object.
The murder charges were withdrawn in July when the forensic pathologist opined Mr Pullen would have died from the initial hit-and-run and Mason was then charged with attempted murder, prosecutors alleging she had the intent to kill Mr Pullen despite the fatal injuries he had already suffered.
Knight and Mason were expected to face a trial in May but after weeks of negotiations between the DPP and defence lawyers, they were re-arraigned in Newcastle District Court and pleaded guilty.
Knight admitted to the hit-and-run while Mason pleaded guilty to concealing the crash after the DPP withdrew the attempted murder charge.
For concealing Knight's hit-and-run, Mason was jailed for a maximum of 14 months with a non-parole period of seven months.
With time served, Mason will be eligible to be released in August.
More to come.
