A woman whose driving caused the death of a farmer has been ordered to complete 120 hours community service.
As well as the CSO imposed on 25-year-old Nicola Evelyn Watson at Newry Crown Court, Judge Gordon Kerr QC also banned her from driving for 18 months.
He told the court that while the sentence “may disappoint the victim’s family, I’m constrained by the authorities” and the guidelines for causing death by careless driving.
Judge Kerr said that having assessed Watson’s case as being “at the lower end of culpability, an immediate custodial sentence is not necessary.”
At an earlier hearing Watson, from Patrick Street in Newry, pleaded guilty to causing the death of Patrick Gerard Lively by driving carelessly on the Bryansford Road in Hilltown on August 15, 2016.
When he opened the facts of the case last week, prosecuting QC Charles MacCreanor described how Mr Lively, a 60-year-old married father of two, had just finished preparing a field for baling and was heading home for his tea when the accident happened.
Watson, driving a Volkswagen Polo car, had come up behind the old tractor and had started to overtake it on the bend approaching a cross roads when Mr Lively turned right, veering across her path and the two collided.
The impact caused the tractor to topple over and it fell on Mr Lively who was trapped beneath it, sustaining injuries which “caused his rapid death.”
According to a forensic expert, there were no road signs warning drivers of the approaching cross roads and the indicators and the brake lights on the tractor “did not operate” when he examined it after the crash.
The court was told Watson was estimated to be travelling at around 25 mph in the 60 zone and the tractor at 10-15.
“The matters that we ask the court to consider is that the carelessness of overtaking at a crossroads when approaching a blind bend with a slow moving vehicle which on her own account, she wasn’t sure which way that vehicle was going,” said a prosecuting lawyer.
Defence QC Patrick Lyttle said Watson was a "decent, hard working individual," who "will never be back before the courts" and that the tragic death of the farmer "will live with her for the rest of her life."
Judge Kerr said he had received victim impact statements from Mr Lively’s widow and children and that each of them “are testament to the loving relationship and strong sense of loss, despite the passage of time.”
Describing Watson’s actions in overtaking as a “misinterpreted manoeuvre,” the judge added that while there were no aggravating features, there were numerous mitigating factors including her guilty plea, clear record and "genuine remorse for responsibility for this tragic death."