Judge fines homicidal driver

Layne Orlando Royer who was found guilty of causing the death of Samuel Alie alias Blanc by reckless driving has been spared a jail sentence.

Judge Errol Thomas fined him $15,000 to be paid within six months or spend two years in jail. Royer's driver's license has been revoked for six months.

Blanc was killed on Goodwill Road on Saturday morning August 11, 2012.

According to evidence presented in the case, witness Dexter Rossi from the Stock Farm and Tarrish Pit areas said he was on his way to work about 6:00am. He was standing under a tamarind tree on the western side of the road sheltering rain close to the roadside restaurant and bar called Ma Boyd's when he saw a big black and silver jeep overtaking a white vehicle.

"It fall in the lane where Ma Boyd is and I heard 'bhoww!' I see a guy in the air spinning. The vehicle that jam him there went and stop by E.H. Charles in the bus stop," he said.

The jeep had struck Alie by a light post between the two lanes. Alie had a cup of tea and bread in his hand. Rossi went to the body and saw injuries to his head and damage to his stomach. The body was between two poles, the one he had been standing by along the road.

The driver of the jeep left the area of Egbert Charles and came to see the damage he had done then went and sat on the wall on the western side of the road.

Another witness, Anthony Alexis of Tarrish Pit, a security and maintenance man of Public Works said was walking along the eastern side of the road, the side of the road of Public Works, in a northerly direction with a female colleague when he saw that a white bus coming from the Fond Cole area slow down.

The black vehicle behind it drove from behind going across the road to the other lane cutting across the pavement. He heard a noise and saw Alie's body on the windscreen of the dark vehicle and in the air. The vehicle was going fast. The body fell on the road on the western side near the bay. The man's body had a hole in its head and was lying on his back and one of his legs was twisted. Alexis also noted a Bible which belonged to Alie. He also saw the cup. Alexis put his hand to Alie's neck to see if he had any pulse. He next took his phone and called the emergency unit.

In a statement from the Prisoners' Dock, Layne said he was coming from work at the then Melville Hall Airport on the evening of Friday August 10, 2012. As he came off duty that night, he received a call from his girlfriend who asked him to come to pick up his two sons. It was decided that he would pick them up in the morning. He called a friend and they decided to "do a lime" about five in the morning.

He decided to drop his friend home at Massacre. They stopped at the Roseau Market where the friend bought him black pudding and a beer.

On his way back to Roseau he was approaching the bus stop opposite Ma Boyd's Bar when he came around a white vehicle in front of him close to the left side of the road. He got alongside the white vehicle when it suddenly drifted towards him.

He said: "So I reflexively pulled to the right and I turned to the vehicle while turning away. When I returned my gaze to the road the light pole was dead in front of me. I know I could not return to the left because of the vehicle. The pole was right there so I just served around the pole; as I crossed the pole I heard "bax! – a loud cracking noise so I just froze up for a while. I looked to the left of my windscreen I saw it was cracked. By that time I was basically drifting on the road…"

He parked on the western side of the road and went back to where the body lay.

As he wound up a 73-minute defence he said that he did not deny the fact that his vehicle struck the man,

"But I am denying the accusation that I was reckless in my chance to avoid the collision. And the only reason I would act differently in a similar situation is because I know now the outcome, something I had no way of knowing at that time…" he said.