A LORRY driver who killed three Church of England ministers when his truck ploughed into their stationary car at traffic lights was cleared yesterday of dangerous driving.

Long-distance lorry driver Mark King was cleared by a jury of three charges of causing death by dangerous driving, but convicted of the lesser charge of careless driving.

After the verdicts were ann-ounced, Judge Esmond Faulks told King: "This is the worst case of careless driving I have ever encountered or heard of.

"Driving down the A1 in a 38-tonne lorry for distances in excess of half a mile you were paying little or no attention.

"As a result, you ploughed into a car, killing three people instantly. It was a quite appall-ing piece of careless driving."

Newcastle Crown Court had heard that the three close friends had been out walking in Northumberland before heading back to their parishes in the Tyneside area when tragedy struck on a section of heavy roadworks in the Felton area of Northumberland.

Their black Rover saloon car was in a queue of stationary traffic at temporary traffic lights when King's articulated lorry ploughed into it, crushing it to half its size and killing all three instantly.

King, 40, of Haughley, Stowmarket, in Suffolk, had denied three charges of causing death by dangerous driving in the smash on May 27, 1999.

Yesterday, the jury took just over 90 minutes to find him not guilty of the offences but convict him of careless driving.

The divorced father-of-two was fined £3,000 and banned from driving for three years.

King had maintained throughout the trial that he had been glancing down at his tachograph while driving along, but disputed the amount of time he had not been watching the road ahead.

The three friends killed were the Reverend William Taylor, 39, of St Mary's Church; the Reverend Michael Hough, 50, of St John's Church, and the Reverend Catherine Hooper, 40, of St Alban's Church, all in the Gateshead area of Tyneside.

After the hearing, Mr Hough's widow, Linda, said she would use her faith to forgive King.

She said: ''It is not the verdict we were expecting and felt that the evidence clearly pointed to Mr King being guilty of the charges.

''All of our lives have been totally transformed by his actions. As a Christian I need to forgive him and, with the help of God, I will do that."

No relatives of the other vicars who died in the crash wanted to comment after the case.

The Archdeacon of Sunderland, the Venerable Frank White, said after the hearing: "None of the families holds any hostility towards Mr King.

"The fact Mr King has been banned from driving will give him a chance to reflect on what has happened and hopefully mend his ways in the future.

"I hope that somewhere in all of this there will be a lesson, both for those that drive and those that employ drivers, of the importance of the highest training for what is a highly responsible occupation."

Mr King's barrister, Richard Potts, said after sentencing: "His remorse is real remorse.

"He knows that what he has suffered is only a tiny fraction of the suffering of the families involved and feels very much for them."