Hamilton said: “I am going to suggest you have not told the truth about certain aspects about things that happened that day, I am suggesting in fact what you have been doing is always trying to look after yourself. Always trying to protect yourself.”
He highlighted that in her initial account to police she did not mention providing her bank card to Richardson, or that she had remained in contact with his friend Daniel Richards during the night into the early hours of 21 April.
Hamilton suggested she had tried to “make it progressively worse” for Simon Richardson.
Debotte replied: “I am telling the truth.”
Prosecution counsel Phil Barnes KC, re-examining the witness, asked her to confirm that when she made her first witness statement after midnight on 22 April, she had not slept at all since the night before the collision two days earlier.
He suggested that as well as being cousins, before the collision Debotte and Richardson were on “very friendly terms” and “close”.
Barnes said: “It has been suggested you have come here to lie, to say all of these things about a man that you were close to.
“Do you have any reason to lie about Simon Richardson?”
“Absolutely not,” Debotte replied.
The trial continues.

