Former judge and coroner Wayne Chivell crashed into man who then lost lower legs, court hears

A former South Australian coroner and District Court judge and will be sentenced later this month for seriously injuring a delivery driver during a crash in Adelaide late last year.

Wayne Cromwell Chivell, 71, pleaded guilty in the Adelaide Magistrates Court to careless driving on Anzac Highway at Plympton in December 2021.

The court heard that Chivell stopped to inform an OzHarvest delivery driver that his back door was swinging open before getting back in his car.

His lawyer said he intended to put his foot on the brake but accidentally accelerated and hit the 66-year-old driver, who lost both his legs below the knees because of the crash.

Chivell issued a public apology in court and was provided character references by judges Paul Slattery and Trish Kelly, who described how devastated their former colleague was for injuring the driver.

Chivell was a magistrate for seven years in the 1980s before becoming the state coroner in 1993 and sitting on the District Court bench from 2005.

I have retired in 2020 at the mandatory age of 70.

In 2011, during the sentencing of a driver who had hit and killed a boy, Chivell pointed out that “even momentary lapses in concentration can have tragic consequences.”

“We need to make people stop and think twice before they jump behind that wheel,” he said.

In 2012, he spared a driver jail in a case he said showed the terrible consequences that could follow from inattentive driving.

As the coroner, he said a complacent attitude to safety led to the death of a yachtsman off Adelaide in 2002.