A CO TYRONE occupational therapist who crashed into an oncoming car on the outskirts of Derry last year killing two women was yesterday fined £750 and disqualified from driving for 12 months.
The fine and disqualification were imposed on Laura Doherty (25), from Mount Carmel, Strabane, when she pleaded guilty at the Magistrate's Court in Derry yesterday to a charge of driving without due care and attention along the Culmore Road area of Derry last December 7th.
Doherty's car went out of control as she rounded a left hand bend while travelling in the direction of Muff in Co Donegal. She crashed head on into a car being driven by Lisa Marie McElhinney (31), killing her and Ms McElhinney's mother, Bernadette McElhinney (57), who were travelling towards Derry. Both women died instantly.
Deputy District Judge Nigel Roderick was told subsequent forensic examinations showed that neither of the cars involved in the crash had any contributory mechanical defects nor was speed an issue.
The defendant, who wept throughout the court hearing and who was accompanied by members of her family, was travelling to collect her sister from a friend's house in Muff when the collision occurred at 8.24am.
"She was driving a Peugeot 307 and Lisa Marie McElhinney was driving a Peugeot 106," a prosecution solicitor told the court.
The defendant momentarily lost control of her car as she rounded the bend and veered into the path of the oncoming car. After the collision her car spun and crashed into a wall 83 feet from the initial impact. The defendant received injuries to her arms and legs.
A defence solicitor said his client had initially been charged with causing death by dangerous driving but the charge before the court was, he said, "the appropriate one given all the circumstances". He said that "the most fleeting momentary lapse of concentration" contributed to the crash which as well as having tragic consequences for the family of the victims, has had "profound and devastating repercussions for my client . . .
"Regardless of what happens to her here today, she will have to continue to cope as best she can with the devastation she has caused and her family are trying to support her as best as they can."
Before he passed sentence, the judge said he wanted to express his sympathies to the McElhinney family. The defendant had passed her driving test in 2005 and her car had passed its MOT test shortly before the crash.
"It is not clear why she lost control, she has not been able to say. The forensic evidence does not point to any particular cause. This was a momentary lapse of care which had fatal and tragic consequences," the judge said.