BERWICK
Thursday, 7 March, 2024
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Plucked from the air AusNet team members Zack Aloisio, Kathy Burgstahler, Sharon Beach and Mina Awadalla got busy gathering Royal Gala apples at a Fruit Loop event at Montague Orchard in Narre Warren North on 1 March. More than 50,000 apples were picked on the day by corporate representatives for charity Foodbank. Story page 14
Picture: ROB CAREW
Over 100 charges By Cam Lucadou-Wells An alleged high-speed hoon from Berwick will fight scores of charges including speeding up to 262km/h, drag racing on freeways as well as seat-swapping with a passenger while driving on the Monash. On 5 March, Sushant Mittal rejected a Dandenong magistrate’s sentence indication of jail and a community corrections order. His lawyer had submitted for a three-year CCO and three-year loss of licence with a nonconviction.
Mittal will instead contest up to 110 charges relating to 12 alleged high-speed driving incidents in 2022 and 2023, including counts of reckless conduct endangering life. His first alleged offence occurred seven months after obtaining his probationary driving licence, a police prosecutor told Dandenong Magistrates’ Court. It involved allegedly speeding up to 184km/h and overtaking at high speed on the Monash Freeway on a Friday afternoon in August 2022. “This is literally what I do as a game,” he
reportedly said while being filmed by a passenger. The video was uploaded to social media platform TikTok, titled ‘When she’s home alone’ - which received more than 100 likes. In April 2023 about 2.30am, Mittal reached up to 262km/h on the Monash near Narre Warren, overtaking cars at 252km/h, the court heard. He was said to have then travelled up to 186km/h on Clyde Road – which has an 80km/h speed limit. Mittal was also accused of racing other cars, such as an instance of up to 217km/h on an
80km/h section of CityLink – in which he overtook 20 vehicles in 83 seconds, it was alleged. During a videoed incident on City Link, a passenger allegedly referred to an object up ahead on the road saying: “I didn’t even see that bike”. The court heard that Mittal replied: “See what I mean – it’s dangerous.” On 16 January 2023, there were five alleged instances of speeding and drag racing in Berwick, Clyde North and Cranbourne North, the prosecutor told the court. Continued page 4
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