A mother of six accused of murdering a Protestant teenager who had thrown a brick at her car claimed yesterday she was being made a "scapegoat" because she is a Catholic.
Alison McKeown, who admits killing Thomas McDonald (16) by her dangerous driving, but denies murder, told her Belfast trial that to her the teenager was trying to kill her and her baby son.
The Protestant teenager was knocked from his bike as Mc Keown (33) sped after him in her Ford Focus car on the sectarian flashpoint of the Whitewell Road in north Belfast on September 4th last year.
Denying that she "just lost it" as she sped after the teenage cyclist, McKeown told the Crown Court: "If that had happened to anyone else it would have been in the papers as attempted murder but it was because I'm a Catholic and used as a scapegoat."
Earlier the weeping Newtownabbey woman, whose address cannot be reported, said she "never asked to be attacked" and afterwards had been "acting on instinct". "No one can actually say how it feels until it happens to you."
McKeown also rejected Mr Lynch's claims that she initially lied to police to get herself "out of trouble".
She originally told police that "her nerves went" and that the car mounted the kerb but she did not realise she had hit the teenager's bike. "At the time I made that statement I was not in the right frame of mind," McKeown said.
Earlier she told her defence QC Mr James Gallagher she never intended to kill or maim the teenager because he'd thrown a half- brick at her car.
In a flood of tears she claimed she only drove after Mr McDonald to "frighten him" and also to get a good look at him so she could later identify him to police. She told the court that immediately after the accident, she "looked through the rear-view mirror and seen the wee lad lying on the kerb".
Previous witnesses in the trial have suggested that she "deliberately accelerated" to catch Mr McDonald but yesterday she dismissed those claims, saying "that's not true at all".
At the point of collision, McKeown said she heard a "thud or thump", adding: "I realised that I had hit the back tyre of the bike or hit the bike somewhere."
Asked by her lawyer if she intended to kill the teenager, she replied: "Never."