Robbie Awad found not guilty in Hamilton Island golf buggy case

A man has been found not guilty of causing the death of his new bride after their golf buggy tipped over during their honeymoon on Hamilton Island.

Marina Hanna was tragically killed on June 30, 2022, after marrying the love of her life Robbie Awad, from Sydney.

The pair were staying at the five-star Qualia resort for their honeymoon on the idyllic Hamilton Island in Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef when the tragedy occured.

They were travelling in a golf buggy on the island when the court heard Mr Awad began attempting a U-turn when the battery was running low ahead of the crash.

This is when the vehicle the pair were travelling in flipped over, crushing Ms Hanna.

On Friday afternoon, Mr Awad, 32, was found not guilty of causing his bride’s death, according to The Whitsunday Times.

Proserpine Court Magistrate Karrie O’Callaghan ruled in court that his fatal U-turn on June 20, 2022 was not beyond what a reasonable driver would do in the circumstances.

He had previously pleaded guilty ahead of a trial to not wearing a seatbelt, not ensuring his passenger wore a seatbelt and to using his mobile phone while driving.

However, he pleaded not guilty to dangerous driving causing death and said the buggy was faulty.

Before the fatal incident, Mr Awad had been worried that the golf buggy was running out of battery due to it slowing down as the pair drove up a hill.

He attempted to make a U-turn to go back to the resort, but the vehicle crashed, killing Ms Hanna.

At the centre of the case against Mr Awad was the question over whether he could have reasonably turned his golf buggy in a safer manner.

While prosecutors argued he could, the defence argued that he could not.

Magistrate O’Callaghan ultimately accepted a defence witness forensic expert’s evidence that concluded the likely cause of the crash was the downwards topography of where the incident occurred, gravity and the struggling performance of the golf buggy.

She added that whether the couple had been wearing seatbelts or not would have had minimal effect on the outcome.

Both the prosecution and the defence cited forensic experts with differing opinions over what had led to the crash.

Prosecution witness, Senior Constable Gemma Williamson, told the court that a number of factors caused the crash, including the terrain and the fact that neither newlywed was wearing a seatbelt at the time.

But on Friday morning, the defence called another forensic expert, former NRMA chief traffic engineer Grant Johnston.

Mr Johnston told the court that the honeymooning couple’s decision not to wear seat belts would have only made a ‘marginal difference’ to the outcome.

He visited Hamilton Island in March 2023 and made a 3D model of the crash site to assess the terrain of the area, before using virtual software to re-enact the accident.

Mr Johnston told the court he was not critical of Mr Awad’s decision to make an illegal U-turn, given the driver’s testimony that he was struggling with battery issues at the time and experienced unexpected acceleration.

“Wearing the seatbelt, it will stop forward motion, but the lateral movement – even with the [accelerator] surge, it is going to occur with or without the seatbelt because of the lack of lateral restraint,” he said, according to Daily Mail Australia.

He did not find that Mr Awad was being “reckless” based on his version of events.

“What he did up to where the surge occurred, he was behaving reasonably, he would have done the turn without incident,” Mr Johnston said.

“But he then, according to his evidence, became a passenger in a turbo-charged roll.”

Sergeant Gemma Williamson from the Forensic Crash Unit had suggested that the absence of seat belts could have impacted the trajectory of the vehicle with weight in the vehicle being shifted in a sharp turn.

Forensic crash unit officer Michael Hollett also testified that if Mr Awad had chosen a different, less steep place to complete the U-turn, the crash could have been avoided.

“The proper way to perform that U-turn would have been on the other directly uphill into the slope and come back down,” he said.

Mr Boulten asked Mr Johnston to compare his findings with those of the forensic crash unit. He told the court that the alternate route proposed by police would not have completely eliminated risks for the buggy to flip.

Mr Johnston said even in taking another route, if the vehicle had been faced with an unexpected acceleration, it could have caused a crash.

Magistrate O’Callaghan fined Mr Awad $3483 for both buggy passengers failing to wear seatbelts and using a mobile phone while driving.

He did not make any comment outside court.