After a trial lasting 4 days at Norwich Crown Court the jury found the lorry driver, Simon Bothamley, guilty of causing death by dangerous driving. The jury reached their decision in less than one hour.
Bothamley's defence rested on claims of a bee/wasp having distracted his attention from the road closely followed by a sneezing fit. He chose not to be cross examined by the prosecution and therefore his account of what happened rests solely on the minimal information he supplied at interview by the Police and with his employer shortly before he resigned from the haulage company.
The prosecution barrister dissected each of these minimal statements - for most of the police questions he chose to say 'No comment' as is his right in law - and it was shown, pretty conclusively, that the bee/wasp story had no supporting evidence or credibility.
In his summing up, the prosecution compared how the car traffic managed to manouevre around the caravan obstructing the inside lane, with all other vehicles braking and slowing appropriately whereas Mr Bothamley was on cruise control set to 56mph and only applied his brake until after he had collided with three of the vehicles, of which ours was the first. Police forensics investigation of the lorry's tachograph, tyre marks , road scratches and damage to the 7 vehicles, pieced the tragic sequence of events together. We will never know for certain why Mr Bothamley failed to see what was necessary to avoid the collision but perhaps the fact that he had sent two text messages from his mobile phone an hour before the crash, whilst driving on cruise control at 56mph, is part of the sad explanation. The additional information, supplied after the verdict, that Bothamley had been convicted of driving a lorry whilst using a mobile phone just 2months before the crash also helps one to consider the real reasons for his lack of attention.
We now wait for the sentencing to take place in Norwich on Tuesday 6th September.
For more details of the court proceedings there is a report from the Eastern Daily Press, the Norwich regional newspaper. These reports are located online, click here .
