30 November 2003 12:30 pm: McGee arrives at the Wheatsheaf Hotel outside Gawler, 39 kilometres (24 mi) north of Adelaide, to have lunch with his brother Craig and mother Marjorie.
3:50 pm: Eugene and Craig McGee leave the hotel to take their mother home to Kapunda, 32 kilometres (20 mi) north of Gawler.
7:30 pm: Diana Gilchrist arrives at accident scene while searching for her overdue husband Ian Humphrey.
8:50 pm: After being informed the car has been located, Police call at Marjorie McGee's house but find it locked up with no one home.
Both Sergeant Hassell and Senior Constable Bell noted they could smell alcohol on McGee while he was in the police car.
Sandy McFarlane from the University of Adelaide stated the PTSD was due to "horrific experiences" during McGee's former career as a police officer and in dealing with the evidence in the Snowtown trials as a solicitor for one of the murderers.
[1] McGee admitted he had not sought psychiatric or psychological treatment for the condition until 18 February 2004 (80 days after the incident) and no evidence of his erratic or dangerous driving prior to the accident was given at trial.
However, there was controversy over this conviction and the alleged reluctance of prosecutors to present evidence from Tony and John Zisimou who saw McGee's blue Pajero 4WD driving erratically at around 160 km/h (100 mph) approximately 1½ minutes before the accident (McGee's vehicle was actually green but television footage showed that at night, and under artificial lighting, it looked blue).
There are also alleged anomalies concerning the behaviour of police in not breath testing McGee and the opportunity that major prosecution witness Tony Felice had to give evidence.
At trial Sergeant Hassell gave evidence that while he knew he had the power to test for alcohol, they were short staffed and under pressure so it was not something he had considered at the time.
Evidence was heard from lawyers involved in the trial, respected psychiatrists, police officers, witnesses and members of the McGee family.
Commissioner James also produced a second closed (secret) report of recommendations for relevant agencies and ministers.
[1] Charges of conspiring to pervert the course of justice and perverting the course of justice were laid against McGee and his brother Craig on 26 August 2005 over allegations they worked together to "frustrate, deflect or prevent" the police investigation into the hit and run in order to prevent police gaining "evidence of the blood-alcohol reading and sobriety of Eugene McGee".
[9] On 17 March, at a hearing that lasted less than a minute, District Court Judge Peter Herriman acquitted the McGees of the conspiracy charges finding that "There was no legal obligation then falling upon Eugene to surrender himself or upon either of them to assist police.
Humphrey's widow Di Gilcrist stated, "He is actually profiting from the experience and the stigma that the case has afforded him...It is a sad reflection of the criminal justice system that something so black and white could be manipulated to absolve McGee of his lack of moral and ethical responsibility"[11][12] Di Gilcrist subsequently complained to the legal board that McGee's actions [following the hit-run] amounted to professional misconduct.
[14] On 8 December 2011 Attorney-General John Rau closed the McGee case after Crown legal advice suggested the Conduct Board's decision could not be challenged.
Opposition justice spokesman Stephen Wade said Rau could overturn the Board's ruling not to ban Mr McGee from practising and challenged him to release the Crown's legal advice.
McGee replied that an apology had been offered through his solicitor years before which had been rejected and it had not been repeated out of respect for the family's privacy.
The changes to the definitions were designed to prevent a repeat of the Legal Practitioners Conduct Board's hearing that found McGee not guilty.