BY JENNIFER KUSAPA
THE man who was arrested and charged over a traffic accident which occurred in 2020 at the Foxwood area has been acquitted.
Deputy Chief Magistrate Ricky Iomea acquitted the man charged with one count of Causing death by reckless and dangerous driving under the traffic offences Act.
The accused entered a plea of not guilty and a trial was conducted and the court found him not guilty and acquitted him.
This is the case against Simon Peter Sonithagea who police alleged to have caused the death of a man at the Foxwood Road area.
DCM Iomea in his judgment said prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt the charge against the accused.
“The existence and non-exclusion of those possibilities by the Prosecution lead only to one conclusion, that I am not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the accused caused the death of the deceased,” Iomea said.
Iomea said having assessed the evidence from the prosecution witnesses, what the three witnesses thought about the speed at which the accused was travelling based on the sound of the car engine at that time is not sufficient to assist the court in drawing the inference the accused was travelling at a very high speed which was dangerous to the public at that material time.
“It is unreliable and not safe to rely solely on that evidence to find that the accused was driving dangerously,” Iomea said.
Iomea also said the deceased was lying on the road and whether he was still alive or already dead before the accused ran over him remains unknown at the conclusion of evidence in the trial.
“The possibility that the deceased fell from another vehicle earlier or died from a natural cause or murdered by somebody and dumped on the road before the accused ran over him remains open and have not been excluded on the evidence by the prosecution at the conclusion of the entire evidence in the trial.”
