By Conor Sharkey
THE deaths of two motorcyclists near Strabane two years ago was caused by "gross excessive speed", a Coroner has ruled.
Anthony Thompson (38) and Colin Thornton (43) died when the motorcycles they were travelling on collided with a lorry just outside Newtownstewart on July 25 2006.
The families of the two men gathered at Omagh Court on Friday to hear the harrowing details of the double tragedy.
The court heard that on July 25, just prior to 7pm, both men were travelling towards Strabane on their Kawasaki and Suzuki motorcycles, when a lorry attempted to exit the Supermix plant on the Strabane side of Newtownstewart.
Both cyclists were killed instantly when they struck the Hyno tipper truck.
There was emotional scenes in court as details of the horrific injuries sustained were read out.
The lorry driver, Jonathan McMahon of Trentagh, Letterkenny, told the court that he had gone to Supermix to get sand and that because it was a summer's day, his girlfriend had travelled with him.
Prior to pulling out of the plant and heading in the Newtownstewart direction, Mr McMahon said he had thoroughly checked the road to the left and right and that while he could see vehicles approaching in either direction, these were quite a distance away and posed no danger. At no point, Mr McMahon said, did he see any motorbikes. "The first I became aware of either Mr Thornton or Mr Thompson was after they struck the lorry," Mr McMahon explained.
The first person on the scene of the accident was Adrian Ligget.
Mr Ligget explained that he had been travelling in the direction of Strabane when the two bikes suddenly pulled along side his van. He said Mr Thornton and Mr Thompson appeared to be crouched down racing each other. When asked what speed he believed they were doing, Mr Ligget said that while he couldn't be sure, "it must have been somewhere in the region of 140mph". He added that while he could see the lorry exiting Supermix in the distance, neither cyclist appeared to be aware of it.
A second witness said the men passed her "travelling like a bullet" and that within seconds, there was a mass of smoke and debris in the air. She too said she believed the men to be racing each other.
A report by Deputy State Pathologist for Northern Ireland, Dr Alastair Bentley detailing the men's injuries revealed that Mr Thompson died from massive head, neck and body injuries. His death would have "almost instantaneous" the court was told.
Dr Bentley found that Colin Thornton suffered similar injuries. He was killed outright, through extensive fractures to the skull and neck. All his ribs had been smashed after he had become trapped under the lorry's tyre, however the trauma caused to his brain would have been enough to cause immediate death alone, Coroner Brian Sherard explained.
The Forensic Officer who investigated in the aftermath of the deaths, Dr Emerson Callender, said that while it was hard to determine what speed the bikes had been travelling, it was likely to be "136mph or more".
He explained that a tyre mark left by the Kawasaki was one of the few clues as to just how fast the men had been travelling.
Through the 139 metre long skid mark, Mr Emerson said he was able to determine that the men would have had between just three and four seconds to react.
In his findings, the coroner said that on the day in question, both men had been travelling at a "grossly excessive speed, somewhere in the region of 136mph" and that they both died from "multiple injuries".
Following his report, the coroner offered his condolences to everyone caught up in the tragedy and said that the case again highlighted the importance of heeding the rules of the road.
