Fatalities 'careless'
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• A truck driver who Idled three clergymen when his artic struck their stationary car has escaped a prison sentence after being cleared of dangerous driving.
Instead driver Mark King was convicted of the lesser charge of careless driving and was banned from driving for three years and fined £3,000.
Last week Newcastle Crown Court heard how an artic driven by King had driven into the back of a Rover car that had been waiting in a queue at temporary traffic lights on the AI in Tyneside on 27 May 1999. Its three occupants, all Church of England vicars returning to their parishes from a walking trip, died instantly as the car was crushed to half its normal size.
King, who was driving for Becton Transport of Stowmarket at the time of the crash, had denied the charges and maintained that he had simply been glancing down at his tachograph at the time of the accident.
Judge Esmond Faulks said it was the worst case of careless driving he had ever encountered. "You drove for a distance over half a mile paying little or no attention and ploughed into a car killing three people—it's quite an appalling piece of careless driving," he told the court.