Trucker caged over death of Scots pensioner after driving on wrong side of road
04.10.2022 - 14:13
/ dailyrecord.co.uk
A lorry driver who killed an elderly motorist and badly injured his wife in a catastrophic head-on collision was today jailed for four years.
Garry Tierney drove onto the wrong side of the road before crashing into the car driven by Matthew Donnell who was accompanied by his wife Edith on October 7, 2020. Tierney's defence counsel David Nicolson told the High Court in Edinburgh : "He accepts that he drove his vehicle into the oncoming carriageway and did so for a number of seconds.
"Even to this present day he does not know how that came to pass."
"It seems that he has lost concentration for a number of seconds. There is no other explanation to be found, despite extensive inquiry," said the defence counsel, who added that Tierney was "a broken man".
Tierney's fatal lapse in concentration cost Mr Donnell, 86, his life after he sustained a non-survivable head injury and his 81-year-old wife was extensively injured in the crash on the A939 Nairn to Ballater road at Dava Moor, in Morayshire, near Grantown-on-Spey. Tierney, formerly of Greenhead Road, Dumbarton, in West Dunbartonshire, earlier admitted causing death and serious injury by dangerous driving.
He failed to make proper observations of the road ahead and went into the opposing carriageway and continued to drive in it causing the collision. A judge said that Mr Donnell had been the main carer for his wife and as a result of his death she had to be admitted to a residential care home, changing her life forever.
Lord Arthurson told Tierney that he had expressed "appropriate remorse" and was a low risk offender who had taken responsibility for his actions which led to the catastrophic incident. The judge said he had concluded that "a significant custodial disposal" was
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