Guilty verdict for lorry driver

The Staffordshire family were returning to Lichfield from Brittany

A lorry driver has been found guilty of causing the deaths of a family of four when he fell asleep at the wheel.

A jury at Oxford Crown Court convicted Ian King, 61, of Groby, Leicestershire, of four counts of causing death by dangerous driving.

The court heard he hit a line of cars on the A34 near Bicester, Oxfordshire, on the afternoon of 31 July 2006.

Malcolm Dowling, 46, wife Janice, 42, and sons Richard, 16, and George, 11, from Staffordshire, were killed.

The knowledge that a conclusion to this part of the legal process has been reached will hopefully help to bring some comfort in time to come Dowling family statement

The Dowling family was travelling home to Lichfield, from a family holiday in France.

King was on the return leg of a trip from Leicester to Southampton to deliver a stone crushing machine when the crash happened.

He had been up since about 0430 BST and had been driving with breaks since before 0700 BST that day, the trial was told.

His 30-tonne articulated lorry caused a multiple pile-up, hitting a Ford Focus before shunting a Renault Laguna over the Dowlings' Peugeot 307.

Jail 'inevitable'

It then rode over the Peugeot and into the back of a car transporter lorry, the court heard.

King denied the charges, maintaining that he simply did not know what happened.

The trial heard how King suffers from sleep apnoea, a respiratory condition which disrupts sleep and can cause drowsiness.

Prosecutors said King would have been aware he was getting drowsy but he failed to take appropriate steps to avoid falling asleep at the wheel.

All I can remember was braking, and the next thing there was a fella trying to pull me out of the cab Ian King

But King maintained he was not aware that he suffered from sleep apnoea at the time and could not have been expected to take precautions regarding a then-undiagnosed condition.

He told the jury he had not suffered with drowsiness in more than 35 years of driving HGVs.

He said he did not see the three cars between him and the transporter.

"All I can remember was braking, and the next thing there was a fella trying to pull me out of the cab," he told police after the crash.

Judge Morton Jack adjourned the case for a pre-sentence report on 11 January.

The judge, granting bail until then and imposing an interim driving ban, told King jail was "inevitable".

'Traumatic experience'

Grieving family members wept as the verdicts were returned.

A statement from the Dowling family about the "gruelling and traumatic experience" was read out outside the court by Sgt Peter Jell, who led the police investigation for Thames Valley Police.

It said: "Whilst nothing can ever bring them back, the knowledge that a conclusion to this part of the legal process has been reached will hopefully help to bring some comfort in time to come."

Sgt Jell, flanked by Mrs Dowling's sister, Sue Howlett, and Mr Dowling's sister, Linda Whittingham, added: "I would urge every driver to take note of this trial and, if ever they feel the need to drive whilst tired, they should think of Malcolm, Janice, Richard and George Dowling, and stop and take a break."