By Phil Coleman

Last updated at 13:03, Thursday, 21 June 2012

A coach driver whose vehicle collided with and killed two cycling brothers on the A595 near Moota told police that he never saw them.

Cleared: Robert Wightman was found not guilty by jury

Related: Death-crash Carlisle coach driver faced 'difficult conditions'

Robert Wightman, 43, was then asked why he thought he had not seen brothers Christian and Niggy Townend moments before the fatal accident in December 2010, a Carlisle Crown Court jury heard yesterday.

He said: “I just don’t know. It was possibly a momentary blindness – I don’t know.”

Wightman, of Raffles Avenue, Raffles, Carlisle, has pleaded not guilty to two charges of causing death by dangerous driving.

Earlier in his police interview, the defendant had told police that he was not tired but that he had left his prescription sunglasses at home on the day of the accident.

He described how the sun had been low in the sky as he began driving, shortly before 3pm, up a hill near to Moota Garden Centre. The sun appeared to be sitting right on the top of the road and it had been “blinding,” he said.

He was taking his 53 seater coach to west Cumbria to pick up passengers for a concert.

Wightman said he had checked the coach at the yard and saw the windscreen washer reservoir was full, but when he tried to clear grit and salt from the windscreen it appeared to be frozen, and it smeared, he said.

He said there had been one or two little smears but it was not too bad. Wightman accepted he could have stopped to make his windscreen better.

He said an automatic visor on the windscreen was down as far as it could go, saying: “It was okay till I started climbing the hill. Then it was no good after that.”

Later in his interview, Wightman described the moment of the collision and what happened afterwards.

He said: “I was travelling towards Cockermouth and the next thing I remember is seeing a shadow coming on the bottom of the windscreen and a bang. I pulled up as quickly as I could. I pulled up and saw a cycle lying on the road.

“I didn’t realise that there were two because there was only one bang.

“I went to get out of the coach, and a man pulled up in front of me. It was a retired police constable. He said stay where you are, lad. I’ll go and see what’s happened.

“I was being physically sick outside the coach. He said there’s no easy way to say this lad but they have both gone. My legs just buckled.”

Wightman ended his second interview about the accident by saying that he was sorry and that he wished it had been him lying there and not the two men who died.

At the time of their deaths, Christian and Niggy Townend were aged 29 and 21 respectively, the court heard.

The case continues.

First published at 11:24, Thursday, 21 June 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk