Legal teams have finished their closing speeches in the trial of the Dublin Bus driver accused of dangerous driving causing the deaths of five people.
The jury will begin considering its verdict tomorrow.
51-year-old Kenneth Henvey from Palmerstown denies the charge of dangerous driving causing the deaths of five people at Wellington Quay three years ago.
Prosecution counsel Patrick McGrath said the most obvious explanation for what happened on 21 February 2004 was that Mr Henvey, for whatever reason, mistakenly put his foot on the accelerator and kept his foot on the accelerator for almost 30 metres.
He told the jury there was no evidence of a power surge having happened on the bus on that date or on any date.
Mr McGrath said the length of time it took Mr Henvey to react was above any reasonable length it would take any competent driver to react, and that Mr Henvey's failure to react for at least 8.65 seconds was inexcusable.
He told the jury it should not let sympathy for the victims or for Mr Henvey cloud it judgment and the prosecution case is that it should find him guilty of dangerous driving.
Defence closing speech
Defence counsel, Patrick Gageby, told the jury that to convict Kenneth Henvey it had to go beyond reasonable doubt. He said members would have to trust the technical evidence put forward by the prosecution.
He said the expert from Volvo in Sweden who provided incorrect figures about the engine on Mr Henvey's bus had made an error and it would be unsafe to place any reliance on anything emanating from Volvo in Sweden or the UK.
Mr Gageby said the mistake in the figures had only been admitted after defence expert Dr Denis Woods had given his evidence and written a report.
Mr Gageby said the jury had been spoonfed rubbish about the figures and it seemed to him the original figures had not been understood by the prosecution or its experts.
He asked the jury how it could know the new figures, which allege there was no power surge at any time on the bus driven by Mr Henvey, could be correct when it had not heard any evidence from an independent expert on the matter.
He warned the jury about blindly accepting technical figures coming from the company which made the engine.
Mr Gageby said the prosecution was alleging the accident had been caused by driver error, but he said Mr Henvey was preparing to pull out and would naturally have had his foot on the accelerator.
He asked the jury why a trained driver like Mr Henvey would have been surprised by the bus moving forward unless something really unusual had happened.
The defence claims a power surge happened on Mr Henvey's bus and caused the accident.
