A woman who helped conceal the hit-and-run death of a New Zealand pilot near Singleton was influenced by "misplaced loyalty", a district court judge says.
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Ivy-Jean Ward was on Friday afternoon handed an 18-month Community Corrections Order in Newcastle District Court after pleading guilty to concealing the actions of her then boyfriend, Joshua Knight, from police.
Ian Pullen was found dead on the roadside at Glenridding just after 5.30am on September 29, 2018, the day after he arrived in the Hunter to volunteer as a water bombing pilot to help the Rural Fire Service.
Mr Pullen, a New Zealand national who had a wife and children, was walking to his accommodation from the pub hours earlier when a Toyota HiLux being driven by Knight hit him.
He was still alive when Knight got out of the vehicle after the collision, but the driver and his passengers fled the scene without helping or calling for assistance.
Mr Pullen's death prompted the formation of a NSW Police strike force and the offer of a $350,000 reward before Knight and the passengers were arrested and charged.
He was last June jailed for a maximum of three years and two months - with a non parole period of two years and four months.
The court heard on Friday that Ward, now 29, was not one of the passengers in the vehicle when Mr Pullen was fatally hit, but she came to know what had happened and concealed the information from police between September 2018 and November 2020.
Judge Roy Ellis said Ward, who is no longer in a relationship with Knight, had acted out of a "misplaced" sense of loyalty to her then-partner.
"If you stop and you think about it, any man who would run another man down and that man's still alive and lying on the side of the road and [he] doesn't even bother to call for assistance - even if you take off, you don't even make a phone call to say 'I saw an injured man on the side of the road' - that sort of character is not particularly impressive," Judge Ellis said of Ward's decision to conceal the crime.
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