![Lorraine Nicholson. Lorraine Nicholson.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/jessica.howard/ee708825-ccfe-42c2-b558-e7871b1168a9.jpg/r0_0_1085_678_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
UPDATE: A Ballarat jury has been discharged after it could not reach a majority verdict in the trial of Lorraine Nicholson.
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The 65-year-old woman stood trial over a two-car crash at a Navarre intersection on May 5, 2018, which killed four women on their way home from a St Arnaud line-dancing event.
The jury had found Nicholson not guilty of four counts of culpable driving causing death but could not reach a majority verdict on four alternative charges of dangerous driving causing death.
Judge Michael Bourke allowed the jury of nine women and three men to reach a majority verdict of 11 votes on the dangerous driving causing death charges.
The jury had deliberated for three hours before reaching the not guilty verdicts on Wednesday afternoon, and a further hour of deliberations on Thursday morning before they were discharged.
The victims' family members and Nicholson declined to comment to The Courier outside court. Nicholson's defence counsel also declined to comment.
The case has been adjourned to a directions hearing with a re-trial of the dangerous driving causing death charges expected to be held in June.
The seven-day trial was held at the County Court at Ballarat before Judge Michael Bourke.
Earlier, Wednesday: A Stawell woman has been found not guilty of culpable driving causing the deaths of four south-west women in a Navarre collision.
A Ballarat jury found Lorraine Nicholson, 65, not guilty on Wednesday of four counts of culpable driving causing death.
The jury of nine women and three men returned with the verdicts at 4.35pm after deliberating for three hours.
They will return to the County Court at Ballarat on Thursday to continue deliberating the alternative four charges of dangerous driving causing death.
The jury started deliberating at 1.20pm on Wednesday after hearing evidence for seven days.
The accused woman's Jeep T-boned a Kia driven by Hamilton's Elaine Middleton, 64, and carrying passengers Margaret Ely, 74, also of Hamilton, Heywood's Dianne Barr, 64, and Portland's Claudia Jackson, 72, at the intersection of Stawell-Avoca Road and Ararat-St Arnaud Road at 6pm on May 5, 2018.
The four women, who were returning home after attending a line-dancing competition in St Arnaud, died from their injuries at the scene.
A police video interview with Lorraine Nicholson from May 2018 was played to a County Court jury on Monday.
She told police: "It was the most devastating thing, I didn't see anything coming."
"Just the thought that ladies had died. Women that are like me. That have husbands and are probably grandmothers like me...," she said in the police interview.
The trial will continue on Thursday morning in front of Judge Michael Bourke.
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