PRINCIPAL Magistrate Judy Latchman on Monday sentenced a 28-year-old driver to three years imprisonment for hitting down and killing a man earlier in the year at Kuru Kururu, on the Soesdyke-Linden Highway.
Sadath Newark, of Kuru Kururu, was found guilty of the charge which read that on February 6, 2018 at Kuru Kururu, he drove motorcar PRR 378 in a manner so dangerous to the public as to cause the death of 48-year-old Dexter Conway.
Police Prosecutor, Corporal Shawn Gonsalves had called a total of eight witnesses during the trial, while Newark was represented by attorney-at-law Sonia Parag.
According to a police report, on the day in question, Conway was working as a porter on a motor lorry which was proceeding east along the northern carriageway of the Kuru Kururu Public Road when the vehicle encountered a mechanical problem.
This caused the driver and Conway to alight the vehicle and position themselves on the right side of it vehicle to try to fix the problem when they were both struck down by Newark.
Magistrate Latchman, during her ruling, noted that Newark had told the court in his defence that he was about 40 feet away from the lorry when he saw it,and that because there was nothing to suggest that it was in trouble, he decided to turn on his high-beam lights.
He said that it was while he was passing the stationary vehicle that he felt an impact, and looking back saw someone lying on the road and bleeding profusely.
The magistrate recalled that the defence had tried to pin the accident on the deceased, saying that it was he who’d caused his own death, as at the time of occurrence, and in the dead of night, he was wearing dark-coloured clothing, which made it impossible for Newark to have seen him.
But as the magistrate reasoned, if what Newark said in his caution statement were true, that he saw the lorry from 40 feet away and had to turn on his high-beam lights, then that was clear proof that he could have seen the other vehicle and avoided the accident altogether.
Said the magistrate as she handed down the sentence, “If Mr. Newark was paying attention to the road, he would have seen the lorry.”
She concluded by saying that because of Newark’s negligence, Conway died of blunt- force trauma, a ruptured liver and spleen, and multiple skeletal fractures.
