A YOUNG Beaminster woman who knocked down a 79-year-old Bridport man who later died from his injuries was convicted of careless driving after a two-day trial this week.

Magistrates at Bridport decided that Vicky Lousie Butler, 22, should have seen Gordon Simmons as he crossed the road near the town hall on a dark winter's evening last February.

But Butler's car hit him and threw him into the air as it headed east through the town centre. He died two days later in Dorchester Hospital from a brain haemorrhage.

Butler who pleaded not guilty, was receiving methadone treatment at the time of the accident, the Bench was told. It was her second conviction for careless driving.

Imposing a one year's driving ban and £250 fine the Bench told her: "It was a dark night, the road was wet and there was reflected light - we accept that. But the same conditions occur frequently in any town. "On a straight, well-it road we cannot accept that a pedestrian could not be seen by a careful driver considering the road ahead."

Earlier, lorry driver Owen Edwards, from Wolverhampton, told the court how he stopped to let Mr Simmons cross the road - and then watched in horror as he was hit.

He said he had been driving his two children back to their home in Chideock at around 7.50pm on February 5. He was nearing the town hall traffic lights - about 20 metres away - when he saw Mr Simmons on his right hand side putting his foot into the road.

"I slowed and stopped because he obviously wanted to cross," he said. "We made eye contact and I beckoned him across. He gave me a big wide smile which warmed me and he came across the road."

But when he was a step or two away from the centre white line Mr Edwards saw Butler's car coming "out of nowhere".

"Mr Simmons had kept looking at me and smiling because I had allowed him to cross. By this time it was virtually too late," he said.

"I had my kids in the car and all three of us said 'oh gosh' as the car came up and hit him.

"The wing mirror flipped him up and he came down with an incredible force. I thought at that time he was gone. He landed right in the middle of the road."

Cross examined by defence counsel Neil Hinton, Mr Edwards agreed Mr Simmons had been wearing dark clothing and the road was wet and the lights were glistening. And he said Butler's car was not going fast - about 20mph - but it "just suddenly appeared".

He added: "Mr Simmons was not walking briskly and I said to the kids: 'I wish he had bloody hurried up.' He just walked very slowly."

In a statement Butler, who was living at Silverdale, Salway Ash at the time of the accident, told police she had simply not seen Mr Simmons at all. She had not been distracted, she was not using her tape player - which was broken - nor was she on her mobile phone.

"I don't know why it happened - it was an accident," she said.

In court, Butler said she was driving her boyfriend's Austin Maestro car which she had used a number of times before. The roads were wet and it was very dark. She was doing about 20mph - not going very fast because she was driving through the town.

"There was dazzle from the lorry's headlights which was fairly bad and it cast shadows. I could see my carriageway but there were shadows ahead of the lorry," she said. "As I drove past I heard a bang and pulled in and looked back and saw what had happened. Mr Simmons was in the road and I felt awful. "It was because the lorry headlights caused dazzle and shadow. He was camouflaged by the lorry."

In a statement to the court Mr Simmon's widow, Marian, told of the "terrible emptiness that is my life now" and the heartbreak that her husband had been just "one step from safety".

She said the tragedy had come on top of the couple's well-publicised two year battle with developers to halt the retirement flats in South Street which they claimed would overshadow their home at Crewkerne Place.

"We spent two years fighting the housing development in our back yard and with that and the tragic death my health has suffered considerably," she said.

"I think Gordon died that evening because Miss Butler was not paying attention. She should have seen him and slowed down."

After her conviction for careless driving Butler, unemployed and in receipt of disability benefits, pleaded guilty to failing to notify the DVLC that she had been prescribed methadone by her doctor. No separate penalty was imposed for this or for a number of other minor motoring offences she admitted.