Driver charged with eight more offences after crash injuring Newcastle Knights fans

Indika Bambrick Samarasinghe, 18, was arraigned on eight new charges after allegedly steering his BMW convertible into a group of Newcastle Knights fans who were lining a street to wave players off to the NRL grand final on October 3. The added charges consist of six counts of causing grievous bodily harm by misconduct, one count of dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm and one count of negligent driving occasioning grievous bodily harm, raising his total to 17 offences.

Ten supporters were injured, including a five-year-old girl now in an induced coma and undergoing multiple surgeries, and 67-year-old Dave “the Barber” Martin, who remains in stable condition at John Hunter Hospital. Police say the driver was reported to have been driving erratically before the crash. Samarasinghe, whose licence had been suspended earlier in the year, was granted bail to his family’s multimillion-dollar home in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, subject to an 8 p.m. curfew, a driving ban, and a 20-kilometre exclusion zone around Newcastle. He is scheduled to appear via video link at Newcastle Local Court on Thursday.