Plans to run away to a remote Northern Territory property have scuppered a bid for bail by a Queensland truck driver extradited and charged over a crash which killed a six-year-old boy.
Allan Michael Dyson appeared in the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday by video-link from Silverwater prison seeking his freedom and return to Calamvale in Queensland.
Justice Desmond Fagan rejected this application, saying the 60-year-old posed a flight risk and that there was a danger he would attempt to interfere with witnesses called to give evidence in the case.
The judge referred to phone calls intercepted by police in which Dyson is heard talking about running away interstate and locating those who had "dobbed him in".
"He has discussed with his partner the possibility of fleeing to some property in the Northern Territory, leaving his phone behind and abandoning everything," Justice Fagan said.
"The risks of flight and having to find him and bring him back to face justice over these allegations is significant because of the disruption it would cause if it should occur."
The case by crown prosecutors was strong, the judge said, with evidence suggesting Dyson was behind the wheel of the semi-trailer when it slammed into a Suburu station wagon near Sutton Forest in the NSW Southern Highlands at 9.40pm on November 26, 2004.
"I have sorted out the Suburu driver. Now they are in the paddock," one witness said he heard a deep voice with an Australian accent say over CB radio.
The crash, in which the semi-trailer rammed the Suburu from behind, threw the car off the Hume Highway, rolling it 40 metres down an embankment.
The incident killed six-year-old Rian Strathdee and injured his brother and mother Jasmine Payget.
In a statement read in court, Ms Payget said the truck appeared out of nowhere with horns blaring.
"I noticed bright lights in the internal rear view mirror. It felt like the car filled with light," she said.
"The truck light, engine roaring and the horn all happened at once."
Dyson faces one count of dangerous driving occasioning death, one count of dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm, and three counts of causing bodily harm by misconduct while operating a motor vehicle.
There was a strong inference the truck driver did not slow down or merge into another lane in order to avoid the crash, Justice Fagan said.
A key issue in the trial will be the behaviour of the Suburu as it was merging onto the highway and how the driver could have missed seeing the semi on a straight stretch of road.
Dyson is accused of covering up evidence of the crash by taking his vehicle for repairs at an unknown location.
