M6 crash disqualifications
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• Dangerous driving by two lorry drivers, it was alleged at a Knutsford court, Cheshire, led to the deaths of five of the 10 victims of Britain's worst motorway crash in fog on M6 at Lymm last September.
Michael Frank Barratt, lorry driver, of Uffington Road, Barnack, Stamford, Lines, who pleaded guilty to causing one death, was given a three-month suspended prison sentence and disqualified from driving for five years.
In the case of the other driver, Thomas Peter Harris of Murcott Court, near Leamington Spa, Warwicks, who pleaded not guilty to causing four deaths, his counsel, Mr Martin Thomas, queried whether one person could be singled out and he asked the jury: "Were all these drivers suddenly overtaken by motorway madness?"
Harris was fined £50 and disqualified from driving for 18 months on four charges of driving dangerously but was acquitted of causing the deaths of four men by dangerous driving.
Mr J. Rogers, prosecuting, alleged that Harris's articulated lorry collided with the back of a van which was hurled 12ft in the air. It had then crashed down on the wreckage of other vehicles which had piled up and a petrol tank in one of them exploded causing a fire that burned the four to death.