A senior Deutsche Bank executive could have been driving at over three times the speed limit when he crashed his Ferrari into a 53-year-old man, who died from his injuries, last June.
Robert James Ebert, 49, told police that his brake was unresponsive when he was arrested at the time, but prosecutors said examinations of the car showed he could have been driving at 97 kilometres per hour in a 30-kilometre per hour zone.
In addition, inspections of Ebert’s vehicle by the Transport Department showed that his brakes were in good working condition, and that the car had received its regular check-up just three months prior to the fatal accident, SCMP reports.
Ebert, Deutsche Bank’s former head of equities in Asia-Pacific, denied one count of dangerous driving causing death in District Court today.
The 49-year-old Briton is accused of killing 53-year-old security guard Ku Lap-chi when he lost control of his black Ferrari 458 Spider in the Waterfront car park in Kowloon on June 9, 2015.
In his opening remarks today, prosecutor David Chan said Ku had been talking to the driver of a Maserati which was leaving the car park at the time.
The Maserati driver, Lee Hon-keung, heard loud engine sounds from the road outside before Ebert’s Ferrari hurtled into the parking lot at high speed and hit Ku, the court heard.
Lee testified that Ebert was driving erratically before he crashed. “It looked like [the car] wanted to steer to the left and then the right, moving left and right,” he said.
Ku was admitted to hospital with multiple fractures to his ribs and was declared dead on the same day.
Martino Casolari, a technical engineer at Ferrari’s Italian headquarters, is scheduled to testify as a prosecution witness.
The trial continues.
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