A mother of five was jeered and cursed by the family and friends of a 16-year-old she knocked down and killed after he pelted her car with a brick.
Alison Abagail McKeown showed little or no emotion as Lord Justice McCollum acquitted her of murdering teenager Thomas McDonald but convicted her of his unlawful killing "by reason of provocation".
Family and friends of the Newtownabbey woman, who's full address can't be given for legal reasons, had to be ushered into an ante room at Belfast Crown Court as emotions threatened to over- spill. Outside the court the teenager's parents claimed that "justice had not been done. If it had been a jury trial, she would have been found guilty of murder".
McKeown, who always admitted causing the death of the teenager at the sectarian flashpoint on the Whitewell Road in north Belfast on September 4th, 2001, but denied his murder, has been remanded into custody to await sentence.
She had been driving to the integrated Hazelwood Primary School when Thomas McDonald hurled a half brick at the windscreen of her Ford Focus car. He then rushed off on his BMX bike in the hope of escaping into the Protestant White City estate but was followed by McKeown who mounted the footpath, pushing his bike 26ft along the pavement before knocking him off. The teenager landed on his head, causing his rapid death.
McKeown initially claimed she accidentally hit the bike in a panic while attempting to escape the scene, but then claimed she had gone after the teenager to frighten him and to get his identification.
But in his judgment yesterday, Lord Justice McCollum rejected her claims, declaring she had "not told the truth - either to the court or to the police - deliberately concealing her recollection of what happened".
The judge said: "It is inconceivable that she was not conscious of the proximity of the bicycle" and later concluded that she had "deliberately" drove her car at the bike.
Lord Justice McCollum added: "I reject her evidence that she was intent on merely frightening the deceased or that she was trying to secure an identification of him." He said he was satisfied "beyond a reasonable doubt that she meant to cause the deceased considerable injury".
However, he added: "I do not believe that she intended to kill, or even contemplated that death would result." It was his "view the defendant was provoked to lose self control".
"The throwing of the stone was intended as an act of provocation and was made so more effectively by previous incidents in which the car was struck by missiles."
The judge said while McKeown had been "peacefully pursuing her domestic affairs" before the incident he was nevertheless "satisfied that she wanted to extract some retribution, and that her excitement was heightened to the point that rather than let him escape, she drove her car into the rear of his bicycle". He said there was a reasonable doubt that anyone else from the area faced with the same situation "would have been caused to do as the defendant did".