A car which ploughed into a suburban Melbourne lake, killing three of the four children inside, was deliberately driven into the water, a collision investigator believes.
Akon Guode, 37, is accused of murdering her 1-year-old son, 4-year-old twins and attempting to murder her 6-year-old daughter who survived when Guode's car crashed into a Wyndham Vale lake in April last year.
Victoria Police collision investigator and civil engineer Detective Senior Constable Robert Hay examined the scene of the crash and conducted several re-enactments with a similar vehicle.
"From the drive-throughs of the collision scene, it is my opinion that the car could not and did not just drift off the roadway," he said in a report tendered to Guode's committal hearing on Tuesday.
He also said the tests demonstrated a driver would have to turn the steering wheel three times to get to the lake's ballast area on the banks of Manor Lakes from the road next to it.
"During the drive-through it was demonstrated that there would be three turns of the steering wheel to get to the ballast area," Detective Senior Constable Hay wrote.
He says his analysis of the scene shows Guode's car veered off Manor Lakes Boulevard, passed between trees planted on the grass reserve and continued along the reserve's concrete walking track.
It then travelled down the bank, striking large rocks, and landed in the lake.
The detective says skid testing shows the car could have stopped before the water's edge.
His report says it would have taken Guode's car - a Toyota Kluger - between 5.7 metres and 12.3 metres to "come to a full ABS stop".
The distance from the gutter to the walking path is 23.5 metres.
The distance from the path to the water's edge is another 13.3 metres.
"As such the driver had sufficient distance to stop," Detective Senior Constable Hay said in his report.
Another police officer who tried to speak to Guode moments after the crash said he did not believe she was genuinely confused about the crash.
Guode says a dizzy spell caused the tragedy, and family members have given evidence at her committal hearing about the headaches she experienced before the crash.
"It appeared to me she was pretending to be confused," Senior Constable Manal Chatila said in a police statement.
The four-week committal hearing before magistrate Carolene Gwynn will resume on Wednesday.
