Death-crash driver was not to blame
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• by Pete Swing,ler A driver accused of causing the death of two pensioners in a road crash was cleared of dangerous driving at Worcester Crown Court last week after a four-day trial.
Nial McAuliffe from County Cork, Eire, who worked for haulier Kilgore, based in Glounthane, County Cork, was found not guilty of two counts of causing death by dangerous driving after the jury had been out more than three hours.
Richard Latham QC, prosecuting, had claimed that McAuliffe knew he was driving a dangerous vehicle with defective brakes as he drove down the steep Fish Hill in Broadway, Worcestershire, in September 1997. McAuliffe had brought the truck by ferry from Ireland two days earlier on his way to Portsmouth docks.
Latham said that the truck went out of control on Fish Hill and smashed into stationary vehicles on the wrong side of the road as McAuliffe swerved to try and avoid a crash.
The truck forced a car under the rear of a coach killing Leonard White, 83, and his wife Aileen, 84, from Grimsby.
McAuliffe told the court that the lorry was "going grand" until he was half way down the hill when the brakes became "sluggish.' He said the vehicle then went out of control just below an escape lane.
But he denied a claim that he smelled acrid smoke, which witnesses had said was pouring from his vehicle miles before the accident as he tested his brakes.
William Wood QC, defending. said McAuliffe had been assured by his employers that the truck had been serviced. "The real blame should be levelled at a mechanic who adjusted the brakes as if they were manual when they were automatic," said Wood.
Kilgore was fined 16,180 by Worcester magistrates in September 1999 after admitting eight offences relating to dangerous brakes.
McAuliffe declined to make any comment after the hearing.