A NEWPORT widow has expressed disappointment at a judge's decision to halt the case against a lorry driver accused of causing the death of her husband.

Thomas Fisher, 60, from Vaughan Williams Drive, Alway, was one of three people killed in a pile-up on the M4 at Bristol.

Jennifer Fisher, 55, said: "I just wanted to see justice done and I would have preferred the case to be tried by a jury.

"But whatever happened, it would not have brought my husband back or the other people who died."

She praised the staff at the National Statistics Office (NSO), where Mr Fisher used to work, for their support.

Mrs Fisher, who also works at the NSO, continues to live at Vaughan Williams Drive.

Paul Smith, 54, from Cayton, Scarborough, North Yorkshire, was facing three charges of death by dangerous driving after the incident on the M4 between Junction 18 and 19 on March 11 last year.

Smith denied the charges. Yesterday Judge Simon Darwall-Smith ordered the jury to return not guilty verdicts after submissions from the defence team at the end of the prosecution case.

The trial at Bristol crown court heard Smith was transporting four sea containers on the back of his articulated lorry when a holding arm on the trailer sprang up and was about to hit a pedestrian bridge.

A passing motorist alerted Smith to the potential danger and he slowed and moved to the hard shoulder but the load hit the edge of a bridge causing "visible sparks".

There was then "mayhem" on the motorway and two vehicles - a Vauxhall Cavalier and a Ford Ka - spun out of control and were hit by a van.

The driver of the Vaux-hall, James Kennedy, 50, from London, and two people in the Ford, driver Beverly Toombs, 20, from Cardiff, and colleague Mr Fisher, were pronounced dead at the scene.

Judge Darwall-Smith decided Smith could not have been aware his driving was dangerous as there was "no indication there was anything insecure about his load."

He said Smith took "immediate but careful action" when alerted to a problem and his actions did not amount to dangerous driving. He decided no jury could be satisfied that it was the defendant's driving that caused the deaths.