“There is a plethora of failings on the part of the driver”

Friday 25 October 2024

A 29-year-old man accused of causing the deaths of a father and son by dangerous driving was guilty of “a plethora of failings”, the Royal Court heard on the final day of the trial.

Prosecutors today argued that those failings made Dylan John Pounds’ driving dangerous, rather than merely careless.

Pounds has already pleaded guilty to causing the deaths by careless driving, but has been on trial this week for the more serious charge of causing death by dangerous driving.

He has also admitted failing to stop and report an accident.

Pictured: Dylan John Pounds has admitted causing death by careless driving, but not the more serious charge for which he is on trial.

The trial opened on Monday, with the Royal Court shown footage of 11-year-old Charlie warning his father "imagine being hit by a drunk driver" just minutes before their deaths on Rue de Fauvic in Grouville.

On Tuesday, the Royal Court heard from people who had seen Pounds in the pub before the incident. An eyewitness shared how he was "jovial", "jokey" and "very drunk" on the dancefloor in a pub just before the collision, and was "sloshing" a pint of beer around.

On the third and fourth day of the trial, the Royal Court heard from a forensic pathologist, the woman who found the father and son in the road following the fatal hit-and-run, and a forensics collision investigator.

In his closing speech this afternoon, Crown Advocate Matthew Maletroit, prosecuting, argued that there was strong evidence that Pounds had been drinking heavily before driving his van, and was speeding and using his mobile phone as he drove it.

He said: “There is a plethora of failings on the part of the driver that take this well beyond carelessness and well into dangerousness.”

The Lowe family had been attending a birthday party that evening and Advocate Maletroit said: “Little did they know that it was the last occasion they would ever spend together as a family.”

CCTV footage from inside the Dolphin Hotel in Gorey as well as the testimony of witnesses showed that Pounds had been drinking heavily.

The advocate said: “What we have here is a nine-hour drinking session where the defendant drank around nine or ten pints of lager.”

Mobile phone records showed that Pounds made a three-minute call just as he pulled out of the Pembroke pub car park in his van.

The advocate said: “There was no hands-free set-up in the van. It would have been a distraction at a time when he should have been concentrating on the road.

“He didn’t apply emergency braking, not even when he hit pedestrians, not even when Dean Lowe impacted on the windscreen.”

But Advocate Ian Jones, defending, said in his closing comments that there was uncertainty about the identity of a van seen speeding that night.

He said: “Can you be sure that that was the van? You can’t.”

He added: “You cannot be sure that Mr Pounds was on the phone. You may think he might have been. But ‘might have been’ is not good enough.”

The defence advocate also said that the evidence of Mr Pounds’s friend Callum Best was unreliable because he had been unable to remember certain details.

He said: “You can only be sure that Mr Pounds consumed one pint.”

Deputy Bailiff Robert MacRae is presiding with Jurats Jane Ronge and Karen Le Cornu sitting.

The verdict is expected on Monday.