Jury starts deliberations in trial of US servicewoman Mikayla Hayes

A jury has begun deliberations in the case of a US servicewoman who is accused of causing the death of a motorcyclist by careless driving.

Airman first class Mikayla Hayes, who denies the offence and is on trial at Norwich Crown Court, had emerged from a side road across the path of Matthew Day when the crash happened.

The 25-year-old had been turning right, towards her home in Downham Market, Norfolk as she travelled back from RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk where she worked.

She emerged from the B1160 Lynn Road across the path of 33-year-old Mr Day as he travelled south along the A10 at Southery in Norfolk on August 26 last year.

The father-of-one’s Yamaha motorbike struck her Honda Accord and he died of his injuries later that day.

Hayes said in evidence: “I still to this day have no idea why I didn’t see that motorcycle.”

Judge Alice Robinson sent jurors out to start considering their verdict on Thursday after she summed up the evidence in the case to them.

She earlier discharged one of the 12 jurors, who had been taken ill, explaining to the remaining 11 jurors that “sometimes it’s not possible to continue with 12 people”.