In the early hours of 5th of December 1990, Detective Sergeant Hughes, Officer in Charge of Mandurah Criminal Investigation Branch, was driving his marked Police vehicle returning from Bunbury.

Detective Sergeant Hughes was driving on the Old Coast Road, south of Mandurah, when his Police vehicle veered across the dividing line into the path of an oncoming heavily laden truck, striking the vehicle and collided with a tree, his vehicle overturned and burst into flames.