Paige Welch, 23, of Cobram, pleaded guilty in the County Court to recklessly causing serious injury, failing to stop after a car accident and failing to render assistance after a car accident.
A prosecutor told the court Welch hit a woman with her car at the victim’s house on Acacia St, Cobram, about 12.50am on January 1, 2023, after she had been there for New Year’s Eve celebrations.
The woman landed on the bonnet before falling on the ground in front of the car.
The victim then got stuck underneath the car and could hear it revving above her, before Welch drove over her and on to the road, the court heard.
The victim was in a coma for six days at Melbourne’s The Alfred hospital and was given a 30 per cent chance of survival.
She had a shattered pelvis, a bone protruding from her body, damaged lungs and a broken collarbone and ribs.
The victim had become involved in a verbal dispute with Welch and another woman, and she told them to leave her house at 12.48am.
The dispute continued outside after Welch and the other woman had got into the car.
The prosecutor said witnesses heard Welch tell the victim “move or I’ll f****** hit you” and “I’m going to run you over”.
Welch turned herself in at Cobram Police Station at about 5am the same day.
She told police she went to drive straight but the victim had moved, and she locked the car doors because she was afraid the victim was going to hurt her.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, the female victim said she had been struggling through the “hard, emotional time” and she didn’t know if she “will ever mentally recover”.
She said it had affected “not only me, but my two children immensely” who “had to see me on life support”.
“I look at the whole world as a dangerous place,” she said.
“I don’t believe telling someone to leave my house deserves the consequences I got.”
Welch’s defence counsel said her client bolted out of the house and locked the car doors because she was “fearful” of the “aggressive woman”.
She said Welch didn’t swerve the car to hit the victim, and she had “panicked” when she drove over her.
The defence counsel said Welch had been diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder from her relationship with her parents, who were both drug addicts, and her fight-or-flight instincts had kicked in.
“Her ability to respond in an appropriate way was compromised by matters deeply ingrained that go back to childhood,” she told the court.
Welch’s defence counsel said her mental health would “deteriorate in custody”, and prison wasn’t a suitable sentence for “someone so vulnerable”.
She had moved to Queensland for a while after being concerned about threats made by members of the Cobram community, but was now living in the town again.
Judge Geoffery Chettle said he accepted Welch was a “young, troubled woman who’s been belted around by life”; however, he didn’t see how that equated to running someone over.
“She nearly killed this woman,” he said.
“It’s almost impossible to justify in any way.”
Welch will be sentenced later in February.
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