Life 'ruined' by deliberate high-speed smash

By ADAM COOPER, The Age

A MAN told his fiancee their lives were about to end before he deliberately rammed his ute into the back of a parked car at more than 100km/h, a court has heard.

“That’s it, it’s all f…ing over for the both of us,” Alan James Marchingo told his fiancee as he hit the accelerator and drove at a parked car 200 metres away on the morning of March 19 in Noble Park last year, the County Court heard on Friday.

The court heard Marchingo made only a slight attempt to brake as Jessica Knight screamed at him to stop, before the ute smashed into the car at 101km/h, careered over the other side of Chandler Road, sheared off a power pole and slammed into a tree.

Marchingo and Ms Knight were both knocked unconscious and spared serious injuries by the ute’s airbags, but Judge Julie Nicholson noted both were fortunate not to be killed.

“It’s lucky anyone was alive,” she said as prosecutor Kieran Gilligan outlined the case to the court.

Marchingo, 23, has pleaded guilty to reckless conduct endangering life, two drug charges, driving while his licence was suspended and failing a blood test.