By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A hit-run driver who fled a fatal crash in Dandenong and tried to cover up his involvement has been jailed.
Troy Olierook, 34, of Wantirna, was driving disqualified when he struck pedestrian Scott Alan Hickey on Princes Highway Dandenong near Adelaide Street about 8pm on Wednesday 3 June 2020.
He stopped for about 15 seconds in the unregistered Holden Cruze, and accelerated off, County Court judge Anne Hassan said in sentencing on 21 October.
“You must have been aware that Mr Hickey’s condition was perilous yet you left him,” she told Olierook.
Worse, he tried to conceal the vehicle using stolen parts, and falsely implicated another as the driver.
Just before the hit-run, a possibly intoxicated Mr Hickey was walking on and off the highway in front of cars.
He stopped in the centre outbound lane. Without stopping or deviating, the Cruze struck Mr Hickey at an estimated 70 km/h.
The 36-year-old Dandenong victim – “clearly a well-loved” member of his family – was treated by other motorists, police and paramedics.
He died of multiple injuries on the way to hospital.
Police publicly released video footage as part of a “complex” investigation to find the hit-run driver and car, Judge Hassan noted.
Olierook hid the vehicle, then tried to modify it with stolen parts, such as a matching bonnet stolen from a car in Fitzroy.
He also later told police that the car had been earlier stolen by an associate.
After a “protracted period of lies and deception”, Olierook eventually pleaded guilty at the Victorian County Court to failing to stop and render assistance, destruction of evidence and car theft.
Olierook was not alleged to have caused Mr Hickey’s death by a matter of law, but charged with how he behaved in the aftermath, Judge Hassan noted.
The maximum term for failing to stop and render assistance was recently increased to 10 years’ jail – the offence described as “reprehensible, callous and inhumane”, Judge Hassan said.
Olierook also pleaded guilty to two commercial burglaries and multiple thefts in Dandenong around the same time.
Among them was a break-in and theft of a tray-truck at a Dandenong South lattice and garden fence business in May 2020.
Olierook and three other burglars stole power tools, computer equipment and lattices and screens, which they loaded onto the business’s truck and a stolen vintage 1970 Ford Fairmont.
He and others also stole pokie machines, power tools and computer equipment during a break-in at a Dandenong freight company in July 2020.
They loaded their loot onto two of the business’s Mercedes vans, and drove off.
A police raid of Olierook’s home discovered several stolen items as well as butanediol and a 3D printer allegedly used to make cloned number plates.
Judge Hassan noted his relevant and lengthy criminal record spanning 12 years.
The crimes included dangerous driving, disqualified and unlicensed driving, drug-driving, driving with false number plates, burglaries, thefts and drug possession.
Drugs played a role in his inability to lead a productive life. His prospects for rehabilitation were “demonstrably poor”, the judge said.
At the time of the hit-run, he was on a community corrections order.
Judge Hassan noted Olierook’s mental traumas – though it was unclear whether they predated the hit-run crash.
He’d shown no real insightful remorse, other than by pleading guilty, she said.
Olierook was jailed for up to seven-and-a-half years. He will be eligible for parole after serving five-and-a-half years.
His term includes 836 days in pre-sentence custody.
