Daniel Andrews resists handing over phone records from day of crash with cyclist Ryan Meuleman on Mornington peninsula
Daniel Andrews is fighting a court order to hand over phone records from the day his SUV collided with a teenage cyclist, leaving him seriously injured.
Ryan Meuleman was 15 years old and cycling in Blairgowrie on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula when he was struck by the Andrews family’s SUV on January 7, 2013.
The former Victorian premier, who resigned last year, was served a Supreme Court summons outside his home in March asking him to produce phone records.
Mr Andrews has now hired high-profile lawyer Leon Zwier to fight the order Herald Sun reported.
Mr Andrews called Triple Zero at 1.10pm on the day of the crash, with the collision estimated to have occurred at 1.06pm.
Of particular interest is who called Mr Andrews in the four minutes after the crash and whether that included his then chief of staff, Brett Curran, the current assistant commissioner of Victoria Police.
Daniel Andrews is fighting a court order to hand over phone records from the day his SUV collided with a teenage cyclist, leaving him seriously injured
Mr Meuleman’s father, Peter Meuleman, questions why Mr Andrews is not following the court order.
“He has just been awarded an Order of Australia and yet he is doing this,” he told the publication.
The case will be heard in two weeks.
Andrews’ wife, Catherine, was driving at the time of the accident, with their three children in the back seat.
In a formal statement to police, Mr Andrews said the cyclist was traveling at high speed when he crashed into their windscreen as they turned right onto a street.
“I want to make it clear: the cyclist hit our vehicle,” he said.
The then 15-year-old cyclist Ryan Meuleman suffered a punctured lung, broken ribs and lost 90 percent of his spleen (photo in the hospital after the crash)
“My wife immediately stopped the car and provided help and comfort to the cyclist.
‘I immediately drove a few meters away to the corner of Melbourne Road and called 000 and protected from a car driving straight into the accident scene.’
Mr Meuleman is seeking damages from law firm Slater & Gordon, which he hired in the aftermath of the crash, for allegedly failing to conduct a “full and proper investigation into the circumstances” of the incident.
The then-teenager suffered a punctured lung, broken ribs, internal bleeding and lost 90 percent of his spleen, leaving him in hospital for 11 days.
Mr Meuleman has claimed that Andrews’ car was traveling at high speed and ‘came out of nowhere’ when he was hit.
The Andrews family had driven their Ford Territory SUV to their Mornington Peninsula holiday home (pictured, showing damage to the windscreen)
Police were unable to find anyone breathing at the scene.
Mrs Andrews said she was driving the SUV at the time of the accident, but her husband then drove off in it to take their distraught children to the family’s nearby rental home.
The police summary of their investigation shows that they concluded that the damage from the accident matched Andrews’ story and that they would take no further action.
Daily Mail Australia does not indicate any wrongdoing on the part of Mr Andrews or his wife.