A South Australian teenager has been found not guilty of dangerous driving in a head-on crash that killed three people in the state's South East almost two years ago.
The 17-year-old had pleaded guilty to the less serious crime of careless driving.
Youth Court Judge Penny Eldridge delivered her verdict in Adelaide this morning after a four-day trial in Mount Gambier last month.
He will face submissions on sentence in Mount Gambier in September.
Millicent residents Ned and Nan Walker, aged 80 and 77 respectively, and their 55-year-old daughter Sue Skeer died in the collision on the Princes Highway at Suttontown.
Prosecutors alleged the boy, who had a learner's driver's licence, was not concentrating with the car in cruise control when he drifted into the opposite lane and collided with the oncoming vehicle.
The court heard the teenager suffered from autism, ADHD and Tourette syndrome.
But the teenager's defence lawyer, Bill Boucaut QC, said any drifting into the incorrect lane was "momentary" and it did not amount to dangerous driving.
Nine witnesses were called to the stand throughout the trial.
In her reasons, Judge Eldridge said the issue at trial was whether a "momentary lapse in concentration which was immediately corrected" amounted to dangerous driving.
She said that kind of failure amounted to careless driving, rather than committing a dangerous act behind the wheel.
"Apart from the momentary lapse in concentration, there are no other aspects of poor driving," she said.
"There was no involvement of drugs and alcohol. The prosecution has not established the fact that [the boy] had ceased taking his ADHD medication in May 2020 was in any way related to the collision."
She said the then 16-year-old was not driving erratically before he drifted on to the wrong side of the highway.
Judge Eldridge said she accepted the boy's evidence that no music was playing at the time, and his mother was holding his mobile phone so it would not distract him.
Outside court in Mount Gambier, Ned and Nan Walker's daughters Jacqui Verbena and Kerri-Lee Bromley said it was not the verdict they wanted.
"It's a bit of a kick in the guts for first responders and Major Crash who did all the hard work and were at the scene for someone to come in and say it wasn't dangerous driving," Ms Bromley said.
"We've been supporting each other through the whole ordeal but it just tears your heart out every time you have to sit through this."
Ms Verbena said it had been a "long, drawn out" process.
Outside court in Adelaide, Mr Boucaut said there were no winners in this case.
"It's a relief that he wasn't convicted of the more serious charges. He had always acknowledged his involvement to the extent that the judge has obviously found," he said.
"We go forward from here."
