SHATTERED: Kelly Hornby with pictures of her mother, Denise Mansell, and her daughters, Grace and Jessica Hornby. Picture: John Wilson Source: The Sunday Mail (Qld)

The coronial inquest into the deaths of Grace and Jessica, their grandmother Denise Mansell, 60, and Anthony Paul Thomson, 43, opened in the Maroochydore Coroner’s Court this week.

The twins, dressed in tutus, were on their way to their grandmother’s Woombye home when they were killed in a smash at the intersection of Nambour Connection Rd and Blackall St at Woombye on May 8, 2009 the eve of Mother’s Day.

The driver of the second car, Mr Thomson, from Nambour, also died at the scene of the collision. The inquest heard excessive speeding by Mr Thomson, a cocktail of prescription drugs and police oversight were all factors that could have contributed to the fatal crash.

The Hornbys said Mr Thomson should not have been driving, given his medical record. They wanted changes to a law that legally compels medical professionals to report patients suspected to be medically unfit to drive to Queensland Transport.

The legislation, known as Jet’s Law, was inspired by 22-month-old Jet Rowland, who was killed when a driver suffering an epileptic fit hit a family car in 2004.

“The drugs had a hell of a lot to do with it,” Mrs Hornby said. “You don’t have to be a professional or smart person to know this is all wrong (allowing patients on multiple medications to drive).”

Jet’s mum, Anita Rowland, backed the move.

“I absolutely support the mandatory reporting,” she said.

“What happened to Grace, Jessica and Denise was absolutely devastating and they really need to look at tightening up the legislation even further.”

The inquest heard Mr Thomson, who had suffered a brain injury in the 1990s, was taking a complex combination of prescription drugs for conditions including ADHD, anxiety and chronic back pain at the time of the crash.

Deputy director of the clinical forensic medical unit Dr Adam Griffin said toxicology results detected six times the amount of amphetamines in Mr Thomson’s body than his prescribed daily dose.

“The effect of this was hard to know without knowing how frequently he took more than he should have,” Dr Griffin said.

“If he’d been taking (that amount) regularly, I’d expect him to have a tolerance to its adverse affects.”

But Dr Griffin said overdosing infrequently could cause “toxic effects” such as drowsiness and risk-taking behaviour.

“All these groups of drugs are associated with driving-task disruptions,” he said.

Low levels of cannabis were also found in his system.

Psychiatrist Dr Philip Bird, who treated Mr Thomson from late 2006 until his death, said his client took a “significant variety of different drugs” but did not believe he posed a danger to himself or others on the road.

Mrs Hornby told The Sunday Mail the couple were still reeling from part one of the hearing.

“We’ve hidden behind this for nearly two years, knowing a lot of this information, but I’m just ripped to shreds about this,” she said.

“It just feels like it’s happened all over again.

“We’re still recovering actually … the whole day took so much out of us.”

But they were determined their loved ones’ deaths would not be in vain.

“If there is nothing changed out of this whole thing when we go back on May 24th (for day two of the inquest), we won’t be stopping.

“We are not going to stop at this.

“I felt like, on Tuesday, throwing my hands up and saying I’ve had enough, we’ve been beaten … but then I thought: ‘No, I’ve got to fight this, I’m going to see it to the end’.”

The inquest also heard Mr Thomson may have had his licence revoked months before the crash if an administration “oversight” had not occurred at Nambour police station.

Senior Constable Dean Flannery told the inquest he had commenced a “show cause” action against Mr Thomson after interviewing him over a “minor traffic accident” in December 2008.

“He listed the medications he was on and explained he had previous brain damage to his frontal lobe and suffered short-term memory loss,” Sen-Constable Flannery said. “His responses were very slow and he seemed confused by basic questions.

“I believed he should be referred to a medical professional and they should determine whether he should hold a licence.”

After the troubling interview, Sen-Constable Flannery generated an electronic memo on QPS’s intranet system, QPRIME, and placed a back-up hard copy in his supervisor’s tray.

The inquest heard the memo should have been acted on by former district superintendent of traffic and administration officer at Nambour station Sergeant Nev Kunkel within 28 days.

But Sgt Kunkel said he never saw the hard copy and did not action Sen-Constable Flannery’s electronic memo of the incident because he was not “conversant” with QPRIME, despite the software being introduced in 2006.

“It’s just an oversight on my part that I never opened that folder (on QPRIME, which contained the memo),” Sgt Kunkel said.

The Hornbys were shocked Sgt Kunkel had not learnt to use the QPS database.

“We don’t know what Anthony Thomson was like in his mind, we don’t know if he would have still gotten in that car that day and still driven (without a licence), but at least we may have had a chance,” Mrs Hornby said.

But they welcomed changes at Nambour station.

“What was quite obvious was that all of those police witnesses have, since this incident, changed their processes within Nambour police station,” Mrs Hornby said. “But what about every other police station? I know me and Michael can’t save everyone but we just don’t want it to happen to another family.”

Mrs Hornby said the couple and her father Tim Mansell were trying to protect their daughters Alice, 4, and Kaitlin, 13, from the tragic details as they prepare for day two of the inquest in May.

“Alice sometimes gets frightened when she’s in the car, and Kaitlin, I just can’t tell what she’s thinking because she was just so close to mum,” she said.

“But we’re doing our best anyway to keep our family unit tight.”

Mr Thomson’s family declined to comment. The inquest, before Coroner Bernadette Callaghan, resumes on May 24.