Ian Lloyd-Owen (pictured) ploughed into the back of another car while driving his powerful Jaguar XF
A motorist who drove for decades without ever passing a test has been was today convicted of killing a woman on the M4 motorway.
Ian Lloyd-Owen, 61, ploughed into the back of another car while driving his powerful Jaguar XF with the cruise control set at 70mph.
The vehicle in front of him was stationary because a bicycle had fallen off another car onto the busy motorway, Reading Crown Court heard.
Lloyd-Owen overtook cars in the slow lane and slammed into the back of the vehicle, killing 36-year-old Gunatharshiga Koneswaran, from Hounslow, west London.
She was in the car with her husband Nadarajamoorthy Koneswaran, their friend Raj Thurai and two children, aged two and four, who both suffered broken legs.
A jury found Ian Lloyd-Owen, of Maidenhead, Berkshire, guilty of causing death by careless driving and of a second charge of causing death while driving without a licence, both of which he denied.
He was released on bail and told by Judge Stephen Lamb that all sentencing options were open, including going to jail, and he would be sentenced on March 7.
CCTV footage from an unmarked police vehicle that had just stopped after seeing the bicycle lying on the M4 near Hungerford, was played to the court.
They were told that the footage showed the still shadow of Mr Koneswaran’s parked Volkswagen Touran before the defendant’s car crashed into the back of it.
It then showed the pair of vehicles flying forwards whilst spinning 180 degrees, before a van travelling at a high speed amazingly travelled through the middle of the crashed vehicles, unscathed.
Giving evidence through an interpreter, part-time minicab driver Mr Koneswaran said that all he remembered was hearing is a bang before losing consciousness.
The 61-year-old was driving on the M4 (pictured) when he ploughed into the back of a car
He told the jury that he regained consciousness 20 minutes later, before being taken to hospital to be treated for broken ribs and bleeding to the brain.
Mr Koneswaran had only bought the car three weeks prior to the crash, the court was told.
Michael Roques, prosecuting, said: ‘A car is driving down the motorway with two bicycles on a rack. One bicycle falls.
‘The car in which the deceased is travelling is going into the middle lane towards the bike and cannot move left or right because of other cars.
‘It is forced to brake. The defendant’s vehicle is in the slow lane. He goes out to overtake the car in front and goes into the back of the stationary car.’
The court was also told that the driver of the vehicle which the bike fell off, had since admitted a summons for having an unsafe load and had been handed the maximum fine and received driving licence points.