A COOTAMUNDRA couple’s Sunday motorcycle ride through the country collided with a Coolac farmer on the way to routinely inspect his cattle, leaving both riders dead and now the farmer’s future in the hands of a jury deciding if he is to blame for the tragedy. The jury will retire on Monday to consider its verdict after a five-day trial in Wagga District Court that began with 61-year-old Peter Clout pleading not guilty to two counts of dangerous driving occasioning death. Clout, driving a Nissan utility, was turning right off Muttama Road to enter a travelling stock route about 10.30am on January 25, 2015, when a Suzuki Boulevard motorcycle travelling in the opposite direction and ridden by 52-year-old Peter Black, with his 47-year-old wife Sandra as a pillion passenger, crashed into the side of the ute. Mr and Mrs Black died at the scene. “The prosecution case is that we assert that Mr Clout was, at that time, driving in a manner dangerous because at the time he commenced to execute that turn he failed to keep a proper lookout,” Crown Prosecutor Michael McColm said in his closing address to the jury on Friday. “The prosecution says, at the time he had ample opportunity to see the roadway ahead. “If he was keeping a proper lookout he should have seen that vehicle.” During the trial, the jury heard conflicting estimates of the speed of the motorcycle at the start of its 16.4 metre skid and at the impact. Clout’s defence counsel, Gabrielle Bashir SC, said: “This was a terrible and tragic accident, there is no doubt about that, but Mr Clout is not guilty of dangerous driving”. Ms Bashir said that in his police interview, Clout had said he felt it was safe to turn when he began turning off the road. She said he had told police he had watched the road ahead before the collision, looked ahead before turning and was paying attention to his driving. She said character evidence given by people who knew Clout attested to his honesty. “You could accept his evidence he felt it was safe to turn and he believed he was driving safely at the time,” Ms Bashir said. Ms Bashir said Clout had seen the motorcycle “only seconds, maybe a second” before the crash. In his summing up of the case to the jury, Judge Stephen Norrish said dangerous driving involved a serious breach of the proper management of a vehicle so as to create a real danger to others. He told the jury that to find Clout guilty they must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt the accused man was driving in a dangerous manner.