The widow of road crash victim Larry Thomas said yesterday she was shocked that the man accused of killing him while driving drunk was acquitted on a legal technicality.

Shirnall Thomas, 32, told The Royal Gazette: "I haven't had any closure at all.

"I never got to see him after the accident and I thought the case would have been my closure."

Mother-of-two Mrs. Thomas received a call from a prosecutor on Monday telling her that Roger Bowen, 26, had been found not guilty that day of causing death by dangerous driving with excess alcohol and driving with excess alcohol.

Puisne Judge Charles-Etta Simmons directed a Supreme Court jury to clear him of the charges, which he denied, because the police officer who breathalysed him after his van collided with bartender Mr. Thomas' motorcycle did not have the necessary documentation.

On October 15, in the absence of the jury, Mr. Bowen's lawyer Elizabeth Christopher told the court her client's breath test reading was 126 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood — around 1.5 times the legal limit of 80 milligrams.

She argued on Monday that the officer who did the test, Sergeant Carl Gibbons, needed in law to be "designated" to carry out the procedure, as opposed to just certified.

Prosecutor Nicole Smith claimed the officer's certification — approved by the Police Commissioner — was enough but Mrs. Justice Simmons disagreed.

She told the jury the charge Mr. Bowen faced required the prosecution to prove he was over the legal limit. She said they could not do this because Sgt. Gibbons — who was due to be the final witness in the Crown's case — could not be called to give evidence as his documentation fell short of the law.

The judge noted: "There's an apparent lack of evidence supporting an essential element of the charge."

This newspaper understands that the DPP will not bring any further action against Mr. Bowen in connection with the April 26, 2008 accident in Somerset.

Asked yesterday if further charges were likely, Michael McColm, acting director of public prosecutions, said: "Once I receive a report and have considered it, I will advise."

A Police spokesperson declined to comment on the ruling until after all the facts are known.

Mrs. Thomas, of Southampton, said it was difficult to understand the judge's decision. "It's just more shock than anything," she said. "They [the prosecutor] said they really tried in court to do something but nothing came out of it. Nothing has been done."

She said mechanic Mr. Bowen passed her every day in his Bermuda Air Conditioning van. "I have just been keeping myself busy, trying to put it in the back of my mind but I can't," she said of her loss.

"I have to get closure some way but I don't know how. I feel there is hope somewhere, but I don't know how and where."

Mrs. Thomas and her 34-year-old husband — who have a five-year-old son, Sianon — were a month away from their seventh wedding anniversary when the tragedy happened. He was about to adopt her daughter Desiree, now aged nine.

She left him socialising in the Salt Rock Grill, where he worked, just after midnight on April 26, expecting him home a little later.

Instead, her husband's close friend Denton Burchall knocked on the door in the early hours and told her he had come across the scene of the accident and seen Mr. Thomas not moving.

"I was speechless," she said. "I'm never the first to know anything that goes wrong so I knew something was definitely wrong that day."

She is still struggling to come to terms with the death of her "nurturing and supportive" partner after 18 months and desperately misses him. "He liked to sit by the waterside, just to admire the view. That's his way of relaxation.

"He would take the shirt off his back for anybody. He would go out and beyond. He basically lived his days to the fullest. It's just sad that his life had to end the way that it did."

The two children, she added, are coping well. "They don't ask as much as they used to. My son says: 'My daddy is up in the sun and he brightens up my day'."

Mr. Bowen's trial began on October 12. The jury heard that his van may have been on the wrong side of the road when it fatally collided with Mr. Thomas, that the lights on the latter's motorcycle may not have been on and that there was no indication either vehicle braked to avoid the other.

Mr. Thomas had more than twice the legal amount of alcohol and a "fairly high amount" of cannabis in his bloodstream when he died, according to medical evidence given at the hearing.

Anti-drink driving organisation CADA — formerly known as the Centre for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention — said after Mr. Bowen's acquittal it was "saddened for all concerned in this tragedy".

Chairman Anthony Santucci said: "While a not guilty verdict was rendered, the Thomas family has to live with their loss every single day. They have lost a husband, father, son, brother, friend.

"CADA also pauses to think about the effects Mr. Thomas' death has had on the family of Mr. Roger Bowen, whose lives have been forever changed by this tragedy.

"Our role at CADA is to encourage responsible alcohol behaviour and to continuously remind the public that drinking and driving kills."

Larry Thomas' mother chooses to move on

Zelma Thomas will never get her son back.

It's a thought that helps her rationalise this week's acquittal of the man charged with her son Larry's death last April.

Larry Thomas was killed in a traffic accident after his motorcycle collided with a van driving in the opposite direction.

The driver of the van, 26-year-old Roger Bowen, was cleared of causing death by driving with excess alcohol on Monday.

"It was a complete surprise to find out they dropped the charges," said Ms Thomas. "But even if they put someone in prison, my child is gone. There's nothing you can do about that."

She described her son as a good father to his two children, and a man with many friends. She said that her son had fallen into the career as a bartender because even though he earned his chef's certificate, he was allergic to shellfish.

"He would faint if he smelled it," she recalled. "He would pass out, so he couldn't work in a Bermuda restaurant."

She was asleep when the accident that took her son's life occurred. When she woke up, she discovered that her daughter-in-law had been trying to reach her.

"I knew it was serious. At that point, that's all I knew," she said. "When I got there, I saw his mother-in-law crying. Her eyes were red, red.

"They took me in to see the emergency doctor, and he said there was nothing they could have done."

She said the entire family was shaken by Mr. Thomas' death.

"(His wife Shirnall's daughter) Desiree was really shook up. When they brought the case up, she got upset all over again.

"(His son) Sianon was just turning four. When he was a baby, Larry would feed him at night. He would still come home and check in if Sianon was still awake."

While she said she was surprised and confused by the news that charges against Mr. Bowen were dropped, she said that she could not dwell on the issue.

"I've got other things to do," she said. "I've got a grandson starting school this year. I need to help get him ready."