“I sold my decade-old Toyota pickup truck – licence plate number ‘Bor Khor 56 Sakhon Nakhon’ – to another person on the afternoon of March 11, 2005, before the crash occurred that night in the adjacent Nakhon Phanom province. Ten days later, this unexpected thing [being accused of a hit-and-run crash] happened to me and I was innocent,” the 54-year-old former teacher from Sakhon Nakhon’s Ban Moungkhai Pracharat-songkhro School said.

A week ahead of National Teachers’ Day yesterday, Thai society was shaken by her alleged “ordeal”, initially revealed by the Justice Ministry’s Legal Aid Centre for Debtors and Victims of Injustice, which had sought to help her.

Jomsap was jailed for three years and two months for reckless driving after being found guilty of killing an elderly man on a bicycle. But, on April 3, 2015, she was freed, as part of a royal pardon, after serving 18 months in prison.

There would be no further problem if she was in fact guilty, but “new evidence” that suggested she was innocent has led to a retrial. But fellow teachers and relatives who looked into the crash claim they found the “real culprit” and submitted new evidence to related agencies such as the Department of Special Investigation (DSI). This saw the case reopened.

The pickup-bicycle crash took place on a dimly lit two-lane road from That Noi to Na Nua in Nakhon Phanom’s Renu Nakhon district at 8pm on March 11, 2005. Cyclist Lua Phorbumrung suffered fatal injuries and subsequently died.

An eyewitness said she and four others were riding four motorcycles when a pickup truck passed them by going into the oncoming lane – and crashed into the victim’s bicycle.

The driver pulled over to see what happened and fled, the witness claims. But her group shone lights from 10 metres away and saw that it was a Toyota pickup truck with the licence plate number “Bor Khor 56”.

Jomsap said she was in Sakhon Nakhon on that day – selling her car to villager Prapat Saenmuangkhot for Bt130,000 and transferring truck ownership to him at the provincial land transport office. She also borrowed the truck from Prapat to stop by the Honda Sakhon Nakhon outlet to pay a deposit for a new sedan at 2pm, before going shopping and returning home at 7.30pm. Prapat was allegedly due to collect the truck the next day, so she parked it overnight at her house.

“Next morning, my husband cleaned the truck to please Prapat, but people assumed that it was to cover up a crime,” she said. The truck had some dents and scratches from the front left headlight to the back – allegedly from a crash into a village headman’s barbwire fence 23 years before. Family members say they had repaired the dent without repainting it at a local garage for Bt4,000, but Prapat didn’t mind, she claims.

After a police summons on March 29, Prapat testified that Jomsap borrowed his truck on the day, hence she was summoned. To back her claim of innocence, Jomsap told police she didn’t go to Nakhon Phanom that day, or years before. But the investigator had evidence saying otherwise so the case went to court. The primary court didn’t believe her and gave her a three-years and two-months in jail. Later, the Appeals Court acquitted her.

Then during a second appeal to the Supreme Court, Jomsap started seeking evidence to prove her “innocence” but the court upheld the initial jail term.

The incriminating evidence against Jomsap included an eyewitness who identified the truck’s licence plate number as ‘Bor Khor 56’, plus Prapat’s testimony that Jomsap borrowed his truck, and the green paint on the victim’s bicycle, which was the same shade as that on Jomsap’s unscratched licence plate frame.

Jomsap’s search for “truth” eventually led to a green pickup truck with the ‘Bor Khor 56 Mukdahan’ plate. And the car’s owner – according to his Mukdahan household registration details – looked to match those given to police by the eyewitness as “a 180cm-tall man who stepped out of driver’s side to look over the victim before fleeing”. However a lawyer told her that such information would not be admissible in an ongoing court trial, and thus, she was jailed.

This outcome ended her 31-year teaching career in disgrace, caused debts to her family and brought widespread condemnation from society, she said.

Jomsap’s friend Rojana Jantharat and relatives pursued her “discovery” and allegedly found the Mukdahan man, who thought they wanted to buy his truck and allegedly admitted that it was involved in a crash in Nakhon Phanom in 2005. The group allegedly told him of Jomsap’s ordeal and he reportedly admitted to be the culprit and didn’t know she had been jailed. The family then contacted related agencies such as the DSI and lawyers.

So, a retrial for Jomsap will start soon at Nakhon Phanom Provincial Court.

Pol Lt-Colonel Thongsak Phonong, who now works at a Mukdahan police station, insisted that he, as the case investigator, has gathered convincing evidence. He also says that he has not asked for a bribe. He said Jomsap had maintained innocence during the police investigation and asked to testify in court without citing any witness. This resulted in the trials and eventual rulings by three courts.