A WOMAN who drove her car off a 30 metre cliff at Bar Beach, striking a woman and nearly hitting her husband and toddler on the sand below in a suicide attempt has pleaded guilty to dangerous driving in Newcastle Local Court.
The Wallsend woman, 47, appeared in court on Wednesday where she pleaded guilty to dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm after the DPP agreed to withdraw charges of negligent driving and driving furiously and causing bodily harm.
The woman had only been released from The Mater Hospital's mental health unit a few weeks before she drove her car at speed off the cliff at Bar Beach on the morning of September 23, her solicitor Mark Ramsland said last year.
The woman had complained in the hours before the incident of "hearing voices in her head from the devil" and was feeling unwell, according to court documents.
She told a family member she was going to drive to The Mater to get help, but about 10.20am she drove her white Volkswagen Polo into the Bar Beach car park.
It was a hot day and there were a number of beach goers who told police they witnessed the woman driving around the car park a number of times.
She appeared to be in an agitated state and was talking and yelling to herself, witnesses later told police.
The woman stopped the car only momentarily before accelerating harshly down the hill towards the footpath, fence and cliff edge. Witnesses said they thought she was travelling at 80km/h and an examination of the vehicle later revealed the speedometer was locked on 90km/h.
The Volkswagen raced across the pedestrian footpath, careered through the boundary fence and into the air off the 30 metre cliff, the car flipping a number of times before landing on the sand below.
Witnesses on the beach began screaming and a man down in the water stepped out of the way to see the car land where he had been standing.
The vehicle struck his wife and narrowly missed their 18-month-old child.
The woman on the sand suffered serious injuries and was taken to hospital, while the toddler suffered a grazed forehead, police said at the time.
The woman suffered only minor injuries and was taken to hospital for mandatory testing while police turned the Bar Beach car park and the sand below into a massive crime scene.
Water police were able to retrieve items from the surf, including what police said appeared to be a suicide note. The woman remains on bail and will be sentenced later this month.
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