By Jessica McSweeney and Clare Sibthorpe
Warning: graphic content
A man has been charged with manslaughter following a fatal hit-and-run in Sydney’s west which police believe was the result of a road rage incident.
About 8.45am on Thursday as parents dropped their kids at nearby schools, police say a 27-year-old man, who friends have identified as Rhyce Harding, was involved in a road rage incident with another man on Jersey Road in Blackett, near Mount Druitt.
Rhyce Harding was killed in an alleged road rage incident in Blackett. Credit: World Gym
The avid kickboxer was on his way to work – he had just started his own landscaping company – when police believe he was involved in an argument.
Harding was on foot during the incident, and appeared to cling on to the side of another man’s white ute and was dragged 100 metres down the busy road before he was hit and critically injured.
The 39-year-old driver of the white ute allegedly fled the scene and passersby rushed to Harding’s aid.
Despite the best efforts of paramedics, he could not be saved and died at the scene, which was inside a 40-kilometre-per-hour school zone.
“Apparently the victim had gotten out of [his] vehicle after being threatened by a car following him and obviously, words were said. That’s what’s led us to believe it could have happened because of a road-rage incident,” Acting Inspector Shane Ranee of Mount Druitt police said on Thursday.
After a public appeal and an overnight investigation from the crash investigation unit and homicide squad, the alleged driver of the ute walked into Mount Druitt police station at about 6.30am on Friday.
He was arrested and charged Friday afternoon with manslaughter, failing to stop and assist after vehicle impact causing death, negligent driving occasioning death and dangerous driving occasioning death.
Rhyce Harding.
The man was refused bail by police to face Parramatta Local Court on Saturday.
Sydney woman Stacey Disbray paid tribute to her “best friend” Harding, telling the Herald he helped raise her young children.
“He was the best role model, always there when we needed him, never expecting anything in return,” she said.
She remembered Harding as a funny man dedicated to his friends.
“Even so much as spending a month practising his make-up skills so the kids looked absolutely amazing for Halloween, there was never a time he didn’t think of everyone else above himself, he was an amazing one-of-a-kind man who has left everyone who loved him absolutely shattered.”
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