blame after death crash
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• An owner-driver has been cleared of causing the death of a car driver who crashed into an artic which was reversing across a busy main road in the dark.
A jury at Carlisle Crown Court took less than an hour to find Stuart Jermy not guilty of causing the death of Barry Cummings by dangerous driving. It also cleared him of careless driving.
Cummings, who lived in Dearham, Cumbria died on 3 December 1998 when his car crashed into the side of Jermy's 42ft semi, which was on the A596 while manoeuvring into the narrow entry of a wood yard near Thursby.
Tom Eaton, prosecuting, said the trailer, which was 13 years old, had only one dim light along its length and a driver using dipped headlights would net have seen any reflective strips until it was too late. He added that even if Jermy had been using his hazard warning lights—which he did not accept—they would not have warned oncoming drivers that the road was blocked.
But Jermy, of Longtown, Cumbria insisted that Cummings should have seen the danger ahead because his artic was fully illuminated and visible for a distance of nearly a quarter of a mile.
One police witness told the court that Jermy's hazard warning lights were not flashing, but another said they were the first thing she noticed when she arrived at the scene. And mar
ket gardener Tim Shimmin, owner of the wood yard, said the artic was so "littered with lights" it would have been impossible not to see it.
Police accident investigator PC Colin Freed accepted that reversing across the road was the only way a large vehicle could access the yard.
"It is a very difficult manoeuvre requiring a great deal of skill," he told the court.
HGV driving instructor George Brown, called as an expert witness for the defence, said he could find nothing wrong in the way Jermy had handled the manoeuvre.
Jermy was later fined £400 when he pleaded guilty to disconnecting his tachograph on the morning of the accident.