A DRIVER who walked free from court after it was claimed she fainted at the wheel seconds before killing a cyclist, has also held on to her driving licence.

Tracy Johnson was driving her Ranger Rover Sport at up to 51mph when the vehicle straddled the kerb and ploughed into mum-of-three Sharon Corless as she cycled along the edge of the road, causing fatal injuries.

The two-ton 4x4 then smashed into the 43-year-old's husband, who had been cycling in front, before smashing into a car and hitting a lamp post.

Ms Johnson, 35, of Lyndale Avenue, Warrington, denied a charge of causing death by dangerous driving.

Witnesses described how the Range Rover's brake lights never came on and that the car appeared to speed up moments before the collision.

But the case was dropped yesterday after experts ruled she probably fainted at the wheel.

And the M.E.N. has learned Ms Johnson still has a driving licence despite her blackout - although she insisted she didn't intend to ever drive again.

The decision to drop the charges has prompted fury from Mrs Corless's grieving husband Peter.

Mobile phone

Chester Crown Court heard that Ms Johnson had been speaking to her partner on her mobile as she drove just a couple of minutes before the tragedy, although not directly before the crash.

Ms Johnson sobbed as a formal not guilty verdict was entered by the judge.

Mr Corless, whose last memory of his wife is of her smiling during the bike ride, blasted the decision by the Crown Prosecution Service to drop

the case, saying: "A couple of people in a room have decided this isn't going to court."

He said: "Our lives have been turned upside down but at least the prosecution would have meant the judge and jury hearing evidence as to what happened and, ultimately, some justice for Sharon.

"Now that won't happen and until I receive a proper explanation of the supposed 'medical' condition that caused Tracy Johnson to hit us, I remain bitterly disappointed that the prosecution has been dropped. We had been told by the police after the accident that they had examined the driver and there was no medical explanation for her erratic driving. So to be told this news so long afterwards is difficult to understand."

His solicitor Catherine Leech, of Manchester law firm Pannone, said the CPS decision had left her client 'bewildered and let down'.

The court heard the Range Rover speeded up as it approached a roundabout on Kingsway South, Warrington, on September 27, 2008.

Dazed Ms Johnson emerged from the Ranger Rover after the crash and said: "What's happened?"

Moments later she asked for her mobile phone, which was found in the passenger foot-well of her car, to phone her partner.

The police investigation found that, although there was 'no evidence' she was on her mobile at the time of the crash, there was evidence she had made a 50-second phone call to her partner two minutes and 44 seconds before the tragedy as she was driving.

When she was interviewed, Ms Johnson said she could not remember the incident, only 'coming round' in her car afterwards.

Fainted

Her defence instructed consultant cardiologist Dr Adam Fitzpatrick, who concluded it was 'likely she suffered from an abrupt episode of syncope'- fainted - at the wheel.

The Crown then recruited its own consultant cardiologist, Dr Jed Wright, who said Ms Johnson was in 'normal health' could not get her to faint again despite replicating the circumstances of the crash and 'examining her at length'.

But he added that 50 per cent of the population would faint at some time in their adult lives even though it might never happen a second time.

He concluded that she had 'probably' fainted when he took into account the other circumstances, particularly that Ms Johnson had not used her brakes throughout the incident.

Offering no evidence, David Potter, for the Crown, said: "The prosecution could not invite a jury to disregard the evidence of two expert cardiologists."

Judge Elgin Edwards said: "To put it quite bluntly the prosecution would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was driving dangerously at the time. If she was unconscious or may have been unconscious, the prosecution could not have proved the case against her."