A ROTHERHAM motorist accused of killing two pensioners after falling asleep at the wheel denied she was tired when she set out on her journey.
Margaret Myers, of Morthen Road, Wickersley, said she believed she hit an oncoming minibus after being dazzled by its headlights and mistakenly thinking it was heading for her.
She denied she drifted to sleep at the time after spending the day vis
iting her brother and his family in Louth with her husband and two children.
Myers, an HSBC bank worker, told Lincoln Crown Court she drank a glass of mulled wine while visiting a Christmas market in the Lincolnshire town.
But the 58-year-old insisted she felt fine when she began the drive back to the family home in Rotherham and told a jury: "I didn't feel tired." She said her husband and children, both in their 20s, fell asleep within 15 minutes of the car setting off, but she added: "I didn't fall asleep."
Myers said nothing untoward happened until after she drove through Glentham on the A631 north of Lincoln and reached a sharp bend. She told the court: "As I got round the bend the lights from an oncoming vehicle were just so bright. At that time I didn't know it was a minibus.
"I thought the lights were in front of me. I couldn't see anything in front of me apart from the light. I just wanted to get out of the way. I thought he was in front of me. I turned to my right to avoid hitting him. I didn't brake. I thought that if I braked there would be a collision."
The minibus was carrying a group of pensioners back to Cleethorpes after they had spent the afternoon at a Christmas organ recital in Gainsborough.
The court has been told the minibus was travelling on the correct side of the road and Myers was on the wrong side.
Myers wept as she told the jury: "This has devastated me and my family. I haven't worked since. I'm deeply saddened that two people died. I accept that by driving on to the wrong side of the road."
Myers denies causing the deaths of pensioners Mary Stark and Ann Sowerby on December 18, 2005. The jury has been told a third pensioner, Marjorie Harris, also died following the collision, but no charge has been brought in relation to her death.
The trial continues.
