Truck driver Robert Crockford loses appeal bid for fatal crash near Dubbo in 2018

Robert Crockford was driving a truck from Queensland to Canberra and had just 10 hours sleep in the 48 hours prior to crashing the prime mover into multiple vehicles stopped at roadworks on the Newell Highway near Dubbo on January 16, 2018.

The crash killed Gulargambone's Hannah Ferguson, 19, and her 21-year -old boyfriend Reagen Skinner. It also injured 10 others including a two-year-old infant.

During a District Court trial in September 2020, Crockford claimed he suffered a condition called cough syncope, which caused him to lose consciousness in the moments leading up to the crash.

However a jury found the 54-year-old guilty to 12 charges, including two counts of dangerous driving occasioning death, three counts of dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm and seven counts of wantonly causing bodily harm.

He was sentenced to a minimum of five years and four months behind bars.

In May this year Crockford launched an appeal against the convictions because he claimed language used in the Crown prosecutor's closing address to the jury gave rise to a miscarriage of justice.

Defence barrister Luke Brasch said his client had been denied a fair trial because of comments made to the jury that "ridiculed and belittled" the defence case - in particular their claim a coughing fit caused the crash.

He said the prosecutor in his closing address told the jury the condition was "a myth debunked by proper science" and an "excuse".

In a ruling handed down by the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal on Friday, Justice John Basten QC said after reading the address he was "not persuaded that the address as a whole caused prejudice" to Crockford.

"Describing the defence case, in part or in whole, as a red herring or a myth was a rhetorical flourish which was apt to distract or mislead the jury. At best it identified a conclusion the jury could come to after examining and rejecting the evidence," he said.

"The prosecutor in fact recognised it as such and qualified the rhetoric with that explanation. The rhetoric was unnecessary and should have been avoided."

Justice Basten said while the prosecution made statements without reference to specific parts of evidence given in the case, most of the address constituted "a precise and careful analysis" of the evidence.

This, he said, showed inconsistencies, changes and implausibility in the differing versions of events Crockford gave about what happened before the crash.

"The prosecutor identified numerous inconsistencies, which, if accepted as such by the jury, provided ample reason for the jury to doubt [Crockford's] account of a coughing fit and loss of consciousness prior to the collision," he added.

"Some were identified as lies demonstrating a consciousness of guilt. In some passages lies were identified as distractions or 'red herrings'.

"No doubt the submissions were in colourful terms, but they were a summary of the prosecution case that reliable scientific evidence was inconsistent with the applicant suffering from cough syncope at the relevant time."

Justice Basten said the jury who found Crockford guilty would not have been mislead and the appeal was dismissed.