00:0058-year-old John Burden was alleged to have been driving a boat that crashed into a channel
00:07marker on the night of January 21 last year, killing his wife Debbie and her friend Kylie
00:13Bazzo. But according to Nicole Jones Howard and Lois Owen, who were on another vessel
00:18and seconds before the crash, saw who was driving, he never should have been charged
00:23because he was not the one behind the wheel.
00:26He couldn't get it wrong. There is no way and remembering that I was only a couple of
00:31metres from him and I'll never forget his face.
00:34The women say the next day they and their partners identified the driver in four separate
00:39statements given to police.
00:40All four statements to four individual detectives say the same thing.
00:45Mr Burden was knocked unconscious in the crash and has no recollection of it. A fortnight
00:50later when he was charged, the women say they tried to convince police they had the wrong
00:55person but weren't listened to.
00:58We don't know these people. There is no interest in us telling lies or fabricating anything.
01:04All I knew was there was a greater force and I said to Lois, I'm not stopping because this
01:09man is innocent. His family and Kylie's family, the whole lot of them deserve to know that
01:16this man did not do this.
01:18It wasn't until about three weeks ago that the women and their partners were contacted
01:22again, this time by state prosecutors. It was their pre-trial interviews that led to
01:28the decision to drop the case just four days before Mr Burden was due to face a jury trial.
01:33Whatever happens, I hope the police do reinvestigate it properly but we don't know and all I know
01:40is that John's free.
01:41In a statement, police said they were reviewing the decision to discontinue the charges and
01:46they maintain their investigation into the crash is ongoing.
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