After three hours of deliberation, a District Court jury unanimously found Ty George Martain, 25, guilty of a charge of causing Ms Varga’s death by aggravated dangerous driving in March 2019.
He was silent and appeared tearful when the verdict was read.
During the trial, the jury heard Martain crossed into the oncoming lane as he drove towards Adelaide on Victor Harbor Rd, McLaren Vale, and crashed head on into the sedan Ms Varga, 50, was driving.
The jury had heard Martain was awake by 6am that morning and worked an 11-hour day which included about six hours of driving a tipper truck before drinking up to seven beers.
At 9.24pm he sent a text to his boss to say he was heading home to Adelaide from Pages Flat, near Mt Compass, to “see a girl”. The crash occurred about 15 minutes later.
Martain had told the jury he believed he fell asleep while driving due to a sleep disorder, restless leg syndrome, which was not diagnosed until 10 months after the crash.
Opening the trial last week, prosecutor Julie-Anne Lake said experts had calculated Martain’s likely blood alcohol level at the time of the crash as 0.128.
“In order to have recorded that blood alcohol concentration… he would have had to have consumed at least seven beers,” she said.
In her closing address to the jury, Dr Lake said Martain should have appreciated he was at risk of falling asleep after being up all day and drinking multiple beers.
“A reasonable person in the situation of the accused ought to have known that after being up that day for nearly 16 hours, having worked a full day, being under the influence of alcohol, drinking up to seven cans of beer, should have known the risk, undiagnosed sleep disorder or not,” she said.
Martin Anders, for Martain, had told the jury it was not disputed his client caused the crash.
But he said Martain suffered “a sleep disorder which makes one prone to a loss of consciousness”.
He had also told the jury Martain’s level of alcohol “could not have caused the accused to fall asleep without an additional contributing feature”.
He said Martain did not believe that he was intoxicated or tired and believed he was “readily able to drive… and to drive safely”.
“The only explanation that he can arrive at in relation to that accident is that he had fallen asleep whilst driving.”
In his evidence, Martain told the jury he often woke up feeling lethargic and had wet the bed until he was 12 “but never really thought of that as a sleep issue”.
By its verdict, the jury rejected Martain’s claims.
Martain will be sentenced later this year.
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