Dixie drink-driver pleads guilty to culpable driving causing death of close friend

Adrian Phipps, 23, died inside the burning Jeep Cherokee which had crashed into a tree on Dixie's Cobden-Terang Road in July last year.

In the moments after the crash, the driver Courtney Mitcham, then 19, sent two videos on social media application Snapchat.

The first video showed her seated in the driver's seat of her car with the air bag deployed and her hands bleeding.

In the second she was out of the car, her face covered in blood and she was crying.

Mitcham, a dairy farmer living in Dixie, switched from the front to back camera on her iPhone to reveal the fiery car that Mr Phipps was trapped inside of.

The victim's mother Jane Phipps told Warrnambool County Court on Tuesday it was "debilitating" knowing there was footage of her son's body burning inside the car.

Mitcham pleaded guilty to culpable driving causing death, negligently causing serious injury, driving while disqualified and drink-driving.

The court heard Mitcham drove Mr Phipps and their friend Megan Radley, then 21, to Terang's Wheatsheaf Hotel on July 29 last year.

Mitcham was drinking whisky and coke from a bottle while driving and she used her knees to steer the car multiple times, forcing Ms Radley to grab the wheel and tell her stop.

Upon arriving at the hotel, the trio consumed multiple drinks throughout the evening, including shots, and Mr Phipps was filmed having a good time, dancing on the bar shortly before the pub closed.

At 12.45am Mitcham asked the hotel publican for "traveller" drinks, which were denied.

She then got behind the wheel of her Jeep.

Mitcham had a suspended driver's licence after being fined for excessive speeds and after the crash recorded a blood alcohol level of .139.

The court heard the occupants of the car didn't remember the crash but Ms Radley woke to see Mr Phipps and Mitcham unconscious in the front, with Mr Phipps mechanically trapped.

Ms Radley roused Mitcham with her screaming and urged her to call Triple-0.

At 1.09am Mitcham told an operator she was the driver of a car which had crashed but she didn't know where.

While on the phone, the cabin of the Jeep began to fill with smoke.

Ms Radley broke the remainder of the rear window and helped Mitcham out of the car, which burst into flames, burning the back of her hair.

The court heard Ms Radley tried but couldn't free Mr Phipps from the car.

Prosecutor Bruce Nibbs said Mitcham failed to navigate a right-hand bend and collided with a cluster of trees, causing the vehicle to partially flip and rotate before becoming engulfed and destroyed by fire.

Ms Radley told the court she still had flashbacks from the night of the crash, including the chemical smell of the engine and the heat of the fire.

"I can hear my own screams inside my head as if I'm right back there again, watching as the car exploded with my best friend inside," she said.

Ms Radley suffered multiple fractures requiring surgery.

She told the court she was in a wheelchair for two months and was left "deformed and literally scarred for life".

Ms Radley said she still messaged Mr Phipps' Facebook, talked to him at his grave site and suffered "immense crippling survivor's guilt".

Mr Phipps' mother told the court the day her son died was the worst day of her life.

She said she was devastated, traumatised and couldn't sleep or look at photos of her son as they were too distressing.

Anna Dixon, representing Mitcham, said her client was "deeply, deeply distressed" in the moments after the crash and could be heard repeatedly saying "I killed him".

She said Mitcham didn't know where she'd crashed the car and had contacted friends on Snapchat in the hope of identifying their location.

Ms Dixon acknowledged it was "strange" but said applications like Snapchat were the main form of communication for teenagers.

"It's something perhaps people in my generation and upwards don't understand, that you'd communicate via Snapchat something of that level of seriousness," she said.

But she said it made "practical sense" to get people to come to the location to help.

The court heard one of the men who received the Snapchats attended the scene but was turned away by emergency services.

Ms Dixon said a psychological report outlined Mitcham's deep survivor's guilt and remorse.

She said the offender acknowledged her stupid decision to drive led to very serious, catastrophic consequences.

Ms Dixon said Mr Phipps was a close friend of Mitcham, who recalled him being "much-loved, bright, vibrant and kind".

"She knows that the community of Warrnambool is very much poorer for his loss," she said.

Ms Dixon said her client's family had a long history of impaired driving and there was "real dysfunctionality'" in her upbringing.

Judge Amanda Chambers will sentence Mitcham later this month.

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