Appeal Court rules driver should serve prison time for death of blind women

Livern Barrett/Senior Staff Reporter

Ann Marie Williams, the driver of a motorcar that killed two visually-impaired women after it ploughed into a crowded bus stop in 2011, has been taken into custody to begin serving her prison sentence.

This comes after the Court of Appeal today dismissed a challenge to her conviction and sentence for causing death by dangerous driving.

"There is a lot a bawling," a police source revealed.

In 2015, Williams was convicted by a seven-member jury and was later ordered to serve one year in prison at hard labour on each count.

High Court judge David Fraser, who presided over the case, ordered that the sentences be served at the same time. She was also disqualified from holding a driver’s licence for two years.

Williams was on bail pending the outcome of the appeal.

According to evidence presented in court by prosecutors, on January 3, 2011, Williams was driving her motorcar along Old Hope Road, towards Liguanea.

Witnesses gave evidence that the Toyota Avalon motorcar swerved into the right lane, climbed the sidewalk “with great speed” and crashed into the bus stop, killing Esmeralda Evans and Jo-Anna Scarlett.

Several other persons were also injured.

As part of the grounds of appeal, Williams contended, that Fraser erred in not upholding a no-case submission on her behalf.

In addition, her attorneys argued that the judge failed to direct the jury accurately on her case, that her right to a fair trial was compromised by the conduct of her attorney and that the sentence was “manifestly excessive” given her humanitarian work and “family situation”.

She argued, too, that given the fact that she “had to wait in suspense, albeit on bail, for eight years, it would now be oppressive to uphold the concurrent sentences of one year’s imprisonment”.

But those claims were dismissed by the Court of Appeal.

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