A woman has admitted to texting her boyfriend just moments before crashing her car on a freeway and killing her passenger.
Aine Marie McGrath, 25, was behind the wheel of her Mitsubishi Lancer on the Mitchell Freeway in Perth in August 2016 when her car swerved across four lanes of traffic and was T-boned by another car.
Her passenger, Sarah Kelly, was killed instantly.
Appearing in a Perth court on Tuesday, Ms McGrath admitted she texted her boyfriend minutes before the fatal crash, Yahoo reported.
Aine Marie McGrath (right) has admitted to texting her boyfriend just moments before crashing her car on a freeway and killing her passenger
While she admitted texting her boyfriend, Ms McGrath denied causing death by dangerous driving.
The court heard on Tuesday, there were seven text messages sent and received by McGrath and her boyfriend within a nine minute period.
The messages were sent between 4.07pm and 4.16pm and a triple zero emergency call was made less than a minute after the last message.
According to phone records, Ms McGrath read the last text message sent by her boyfriend at 4.16, but speaking in court on Tuesday, she denied she had read it.
She also denied she was using her phone when her car veered from its lane.
McGrath told the court she was attempting to avoid a collision with a Jeep when the fatal crash occurred.
Ms McGrath’s passenger, Sarah Kelly (pictured), was killed instantly in the August 2016 crash
Aine Marie McGrath, 25, was behind the wheel of her Mitsubishi Lancer on the Mitchell Freeway in Perth in August 2016 when her car swerved across four lanes of traffic and was T-boned by another car (crash scene pictured)
‘I steered right to avoid hitting the back of it, then to avoid hitting the barriers I swerved left,’ she told the court on Tuesday.
‘I knew I was going across four lanes. It all happened so fast, it was really frightening.’
McGrath admitted to the phone use, and admitted she was distracted leading up to the crash, but denied she was driving dangerously.
She maintained the crash was ‘just an accident’ when she appeared in court.
The trial continues.
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