A VETERINARY surgeon from Herefordshire has been convicted of causing the death of a woman in a crash.

A jury found 62-year-old Stephen Lomax guilty of causing the death of Carol Pearson by careless driving following a two-day trial at Shrewsbury Crown Court this week.

The accident happened on the A49 at Affcot, north of Ludlow, on January 14 last year.

Lomax, of Boresford, near Wigmore, who had denied the driving charge, will be sentenced on August 16.

During the trial the jury was told that the defendant had failed to notice in time a stationary car in the road and had swerved on to the opposite side of the road.

Nicholas Smith, prosecuting, said that the defendant’s Saab had hit the back right side of a Skoda Fabia – which was waiting behind a vehicle indicating to turn into a lay-by.

He said the Saab then swerved into the path of a Ford Fiesta on the opposite side of the road.

Carol Pearson, who was in the front of the Fiesta, was trapped in the wreckage and died in hospital of multiple injuries three days later.

Mr Smith suggested that Lomax had initially tried to minimise his culpability to the police when he said he was driving at 40mph before applying his brakes.

He said that the accident was not on a blind bend and was in broad daylight and said Lomax had not been driving with due care and attention and his driving fell below the expected standard.

Giving evidence Lomax said that he started braking as soon as he realised the Fabia was stationary.

He said that he “braked like I had never braked before in my life” and that he was totally focused on braking with all his might.

Lomax added he had relived the events several times a day ever since.

Having heard evidence from an independent collision investigator that the speed of impact was 40mph, the defendant admitted that he may have been driving “significantly faster” than he first suggested.

The court heard that there was no evidence that Lomax was exceeding the 60mph limit on the road.

Nicholas Syfret QC, for Lomax, suggested to jurors that his client was an experienced driver who did not have enough time to react.

He said it was not a normal hazard in a road – a stationary vehicle in the left lane on an A road.

Mr Syfret said his client drove thousands of miles on an annual basis and that a second was the difference between being in court and not needing to be there.