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| Accused: Meeking leaves court |
A WIFE wept in the dock yesterday as she was accused of killing her husband by pulling the handbrake of their car during a drunken row.
Caroline Meeking, 45, allegedly locked the rear wheels of the vehicle at 60mph when being driven home from a pub after husband Alan, 49, called her a “slut” and said he was leaving her.
The car skidded 21 metres and smashed side-on into a Rover being driven at 50mph on the other side of the road.
Mr Meeking was killed instantly by the impact of the crash, which was so severe the rear wheel of the couple’s car was almost touching the front seat.
The jury heard passing motorists found Meeking weeping over her husband’s body, screaming: “I am sorry, I am sorry, it is all my fault.
“That is my husband, it is all my fault, we were having an argument.
“He said he don’t want me any more and I just pulled the hand brake. He called me a dirty slut, he was going to leave me.”
Meeking was charged with manslaughter having committed an unlawful act under the Road Traffic Act of 1998.
Prosecutor Ian Dixie told Bristol crown court: “It is perfectly obvious if you do something like jamming on the handbrake of the car when it is going along it is likely to be dangerous.”
The jury heard the couple were travelling home in their silver Ford Escort to Ilminster, Somerset, at 10.22pm after an outing to Bridport, Dorset, on August 30 last year.
It was alleged they drank two bottles of rose wine at a 2pm lunch before heading to a pub at 4pm.
The pair, who ran a cattery, then spent a few hours drinking pints with a couple they had just met before setting off for their drive home.
Mr Meeking, a car repairer, was later found to be twice the drink drive limit.
The motorist in the Rover, Mary Ellis, said after the smash on a 60mph stretch of the A3088 road she saw Meeking crouched over her husband of nine years.
Mrs Ellis told the court: “She kept saying that she had killed him and it was all her fault.”
Meeking cried through police interviews and told officers her happiest day was when the couple got married.
She told officers she only knew how to put petrol in the car and was not “mechanically minded”.
She said: “I thought the car would gradually come to a stop.”
Meeking denies manslaughter. The trial continues.
