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COLIN Charlie Cole was driving home in the early hours of October 26, 1997, when the driver of a “dirty white Commodore” travelling at high speeds and without its headlights on pulled out in front of him on the Sydney Road.
Mr Cole yesterday told an inquest into the death of missing Bathurst teenager Jessica Small that the driver was coming down the left hand side of View Street, Kelso, so fast that the vehicle nearly rolled as it took the corner.
“If there had been a vehicle on the other side of the road he would have hit it,” Mr Cole said.
Mr Cole, who gave his evidence via audio link, said he stalled his car as the Commodore flew past him.
“The car was dirty white [in colour] an early model Commodore – either a VB or VC model,” he said.
Mr Cole told the inquest the car travelled along the Sydney Road and turned up the Oberon road, and said it was “really moving”.
He said the Commodore continued along the Oberon Road still without headlights, eventually turning them on near Dawson’s Transport.
Mr Cole said he restarted his car and kept driving and had a clear view of the Commodore as it continued on its way.
When asked about the car by counsel assisting the coroner, Ian Bourke, Mr Cole said it was a dirty colour “like it had no gloss to it”.
“The lights on my car were very good so I had a good view of it,” he said.
Mr Cole said something struck him about the tail lights on the car.
“Like the lights should not have been on that model,” he said.
Mr Bourke asked Mr Cole when he realised this incident and the Jessica Small matter could be related, and he said it wasn’t until either the Monday or Tuesday after Jessica’s disappearance.
“I rang the Bathurst police station,” he said, adding that while he could not be sure, he believed he spoke to an officer by the name of Jimmy Bilton.
Mr Cole said he contacted police again after reading a piece in the local paper about a white car down near the river bank at O’Connell.
“I thought maybe it had something to do with Jessica being taken that night, so I rung the police again,” he said.