Two small groups of people standing at either end of a Whitby courthouse parking lot yesterday displayed the range of emotions common in a drunk-driving case.

Closer to the courthouse, the family of Erin Ashley Parrish wept and was consoled by the Crown attorney and a police officer who investigated the 19-year-old woman's death in June 2004.

At the other end of the parking lot, a jovial group of friends and family surrounded 38-year-old Richard Dennis, who had just been absolved of all criminal responsibility in Parrish's death on a Brock Township highway.

Jeff Prior, 38, a father of five whose motorcycle was carrying Parrish when it collided head-on with Dennis's pickup truck, is confined to a wheelchair after breaking about 60 bones in the crash. He was in court yesterday but left quickly without commenting.

Sharon Parrish, 49, the victim's mother, said she was "disgusted" after charges of dangerous driving causing death and dangerous driving causing bodily harm were dismissed against Dennis.

"Someone has to be held responsible for my daughter's death," she said. "He just got up and walked out without even a slap on the wrist."

On the day of the accident, Parrish had visited the Coboconk fair and got a ride home to Beaverton on the motorcycle of Prior, a friend's father.

"We are left not knowing who to blame for this," Superior Court Justice Dan Ferguson said, moments after dismissing the charges against Dennis.

Drunk-driving charges had been laid against Dennis, but they were withdrawn earlier by the Crown for what Parrish's family was told was "a lack of evidence."

The court did hear, however, that Dennis had two previous impaired-driving convictions.

"I have to explain to the public ... that a lot of things that you think should have been allowed in evidence just do not have a bearing on the case," the judge told the hushed courtroom.

The Crown had tried to introduce into evidence a picture of Parrish in her coffin, but Ferguson disallowed it because it "does not go to the guilt or innocence of the accused."

"I can't make a decision in a trial based on sympathy," he said.

Despite the often-emotional four-day trial, Ferguson said he did not have any clear evidence that Dennis was drinking or that he had driven "dangerously" before the accident, at the entrance to a farm off Highway 48 just east of Highway 12 in Kirkfield.

The legal benchmark for dangerous driving, he said, is that the "conditions amount to a marked departure from the reasonable care a normal person might exercise" in similar circumstances.

Ferguson said he did not have any evidence to counter Dennis' testimony that he couldn't recall if he had anything to drink on the morning of the accident but definitely had nothing to drink between noon and the time of the accident, around 6 p.m.

Evidence showed Dennis did register more than 0.8 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood — the standard for impaired driving — about an hour after the accident.

But Ferguson said he was left with Dennis' testimony, backed by witnesses, that he was in so much shock over the crash that he went to his friend's farmhouse, beside the accident scene, and had two beers and a "swig" of whisky before being told to take a breathalyzer test.

"There was no evidence to support the claim that his driving was affected by alcohol," Ferguson said.

In this case, he said, Dennis, while heading east on Highway 48, had pulled into the westbound lane to allow a long line of traffic to pass as he prepared to make a left turn into the friend's farm.

Ferguson said he was left with conflicting testimony concerning Prior's actions before the collision.

Prior testified he was going about 92 kilometres an hour when he rounded a curve and was confronted with Dennis's truck square in his lane. He said he tried to avoid the vehicle by swerving but could not.

But another motorist testified he was driving 100 km/h and the motorcycle passed him at a high rate of speed and continued to distance itself as it disappeared around the curve.