Ryszard Masierak, 32, who was driving the lorry at the front of the crash, was also found guilty at Reading Crown Court of causing serious injury by dangerous driving
A lorry driver who killed eight people when he ‘parked’ in the dark in the slow lane of the M1 for 12 minutes was today convicted of causing death by dangerous driving.
Ryszard Masierak, 32, who was driving the lorry at the front of the crash, was also found guilty at Reading Crown Court of causing serious injury by dangerous driving.
Masierak, who was drunk, was one of two lorry drivers in the crash near Newport Pagnell in Buckinghamshire, which left eight people dead and four seriously injured.
The other was Fed Ex driver David Wagstaff, 54, who was driving on cruise control and was on the telephone to a friend when he ploughed into a minibus at 56mph on the M1 in the early hours of August 26 last year.
He cannot remember what happened. The jury is still deliberating over Wagstaff’s culpability and will return to the court to continue these discussions tomorrow.
The court heard he crashed into a minibus driven by Cyriac Joseph, who was waiting with his hazard lights on for the chance to go around Masierak’s lorry.
When Wagstaff hit the minibus, which was taking passengers from Nottingham to London to catch a coach to Disneyland, it was forced into and under Masierak’s lorry.
Wagstaff, who had been an HGV driver for 12 years with a clean licence until the crash, has described in court that what happened was a ‘lack of concentration’ .
Ryszard Masierak (left), 32, and David Wagstaff (right), 54, who were involved in the crash
The motorway crash near Newport Pagnell left eight people dead and four seriously injured
There is no evidence of him braking or trying to turn the wheel before the crash. He has since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Today, Masierak was found guilty of eight counts of causing death by dangerous driving, and four counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving.
The jury reached unanimous verdicts on all counts against the Polish national after almost nine hours of deliberations.
The jury, which has retired for the day, will continue its deliberations tomorrow in respect of eight counts of death by dangerous driving, and four counts of serious injury by dangerous driving against Wagstaff.
Wagstaff, of Stoke on Trent, has already pleaded guilty to eight charges of causing death by careless driving and four counts of careless driving.
Karthikeyan Pugalur Ramasubramanian (left), 33, and wife Lavanyalakshmi Seetharaman (right), 32, from the city of Chennai, in south east India, were one of the couples who died
Vivek Baskaran (left), 26, from Avaiyambalpuram, Mayiladuthurai, also died in the crash along with the minibus driver Cyriac Joseph (right), 52, the owner of Nottingham-based ABC Travels
But he denies eight counts of causing death by dangerous driving and four counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving.
Masierak, of Evesham, Worcestershire, faced a further eight charges of causing death by careless driving while over the prescribed alcohol limit, which he denied.
Masierak, speaking through a Polish interpreter, has described himself as a ‘careful driver’ despite other road users saying his driving was ‘erratic’.
He told the jury he had drunk alcohol before starting his delivery shift, but said he was not drunk.
The prosecution have said that a breath test at the scene and later at a police station showed he was ‘likely to have been in the region of twice the legal limit’ at the time of the collision.
The court also heard that Masierak had been stationary for 12 minutes in the slow lane of the M1 that day.
Prosecutor Oliver Saxby QC has told the jury they would have to carry out an objective analysis of the manner of driving that day and whether it had been dangerous rather than careless driving.
He said: ‘Driving is dangerous if in any way it falls far below the standard of a careful and competent driver and exposes other road users to the danger of physical harm.’
The fatalities, six men and two women, were Mr Joseph, Panneerselvam Annamalai, Rishi Ranjeev Kumar, Vivek Baskaran, Lavanyalakshmi Seetharaman, Karthikeyan Pugalur Ramasubramanian, Subramaniyan Arachelvan and Tamilmani Arachelvan.
Four other minibus passengers, including a four-year-old girl, were seriously injured in the collision on the southbound M1.
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