Several more scarred survivors of a horrific bus crash are expected to face the man responsible for taking their loved ones.
Brett Button, 59, is awaiting sentence for dangerous driving after racing into a highway on-ramp and tipping a bus filled with wedding guests, killing 10 people and injuring 25 others.
He has been forced to listen first-hand to those irrevocably changed by his actions in June 2023, after his request to listen to the three-day Newcastle Supreme Court hearing this week from prison was rejected.
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One victim, Graham McBride, told how he awoke five days after the Hunter Valley crash in a hospital bed with a fractured neck, ribs and arm and numerous cuts.
But no one would dare answer his most pressing question: where were his wife Nadene and only daughter Kyah?
“It was like waking up in a nightmare,” he told the NSW court on Monday during a powerful impact statement.
“The loss of my girls was something I could not comprehend in my head until I saw my beautiful broken girls (in the morgue).”
McBride discharged himself 15 days after the crash because he wanted to go home and lay in the bed he once shared with his wife.
“I wanted to smell her scent one last time on the bedsheets and pillows,” he said.
Melbourne man Nick Dinakis said Button had scarred his body and “worst of all you’ve broken my heart and mind”.
His high-school love, partner and “forever person” Darcy Bulman — to whom he’d planned to propose to during a European trip this year — did not survive the crash.
“You killed her,” he said.
“There is no punishment large enough that can soften the blow of the senseless, careless and stupid crime you’ve committed.”
The bus crashed in fog and at high speed while returning guests from the Wandin Valley Estate wedding venue to the town of Singleton.
Melbourne-raised bride and groom Madeline Edsall and Mitchell Gaffney had earlier enjoyed a fairytale wedding before farewelling the party of 35, hailing from across the east coast.
Button took a roundabout on Wine Country Drive at Greta too fast, telling some passengers “this next part is going to be fun” before the fatal crash.
Trying to foster a party atmosphere on the bus, Button said “if you liked that corner, you’re going to like this one” and “oh, it’s nothing” when worried passengers described him as “crazy” and told him to slow down.
He pleaded guilty to 10 charges of dangerous driving causing death, nine counts of dangerous driving causing grievous bodily harm and 16 counts of causing bodily harm by wanton driving.
Prosecutors dropped 10 manslaughter charges against Button after his guilty pleas, in a deal criticised by a number of the victims’ families.