A young mother accused of causing the death of an elderly man in Dundee city centre has been fined £300 after being convicted of straightforward careless driving by a jury.
Following a successful submission from defence advocate Susan Duff, Sheriff Richard Davidson had instructed the Crown to amend the complaint facing 22-year-old beauty therapist Vikki Carr and to remove the allegation that she caused the death of Lindsay Laird (88).
The sheriff later took a sideswipe at the politicians responsible for creating the legislation, saying the case was “a good illustration of the strange nature” of the charge of causing death by careless driving.
In the course of the trial, the court was told Mr Laird died in Ninewells Hospital 12 days after the accident. His underlying poor health was said to have been the primary cause of his death, though the broken leg he sustained in the accident could have been the “trigger” for the chain of events that followed.
Delivering his ruling on Mrs Duff’s submission, the sheriff said that where a healthy person died from multiple injuries sustained in a car accident the link between the two was easy to establish. However, he continued, “That’s nothing like the situation here.”
The sheriff explained that for a successful prosecution on the charge of causing death by careless driving, “There must be clear enough evidence that injuries sustained in the accident caused the death. That evidence is simply not present in this case.”
The jury then took an hour and 20 minutes to deliver a majority verdict, finding Carr guilty of driving carelessly in Willison Street on February 22 last year, failing to see Mr Laird as he crossed the road, knocking him down and injuring him.
In her plea in mitigation, Mrs Duff said that Carr, of Brook Street, Broughty Ferry, has held a clean driving licence since 2006. It was plain to everyone in the court over the four days of the trial how “upsetting and stressful” her client had found the proceedings, she went on.
“She found being accused of causing anyone’s death an extremely traumatic experience and has had that aspect of the case hanging over her head for a period of 18 months.”
Asking Sheriff Davidson not to disqualify Carr, Mrs Duff submitted that the level of carelessness she had demonstrated “was not even at the middle of the spectrum and certainly not at the top of the spectrum.”
Passing sentence, the sheriff said he described the nature of the original charge facing Carr as “strange” quite deliberately. Whereas the charge of causing death by careless driving carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, the reduced charge of simple careless driving attracts at most a fine and possibly disqualification.
Even so, as far as the “blameworthiness” of the driving is concerned, “the test is exactly the same.”
The sheriff added, “What the politicians seem to have completely lost sight of is that if you have a test of culpability which is the same, whether or not death is the result, the punishment or lack of punishment should be the same.”
Sheriff Davidson said that, having listened to the evidence, it was difficult to see substantial culpability on Carr’s part. She had been driving at “a low speed by any standard” of not more than 16mph not a sign of someone driving recklessly, he went on and the evidence suggested she was aware she was driving in a built-up area with “lots of things going on round about.”
He said her failure to anticipate her emergence from the shaded “canyon” of Bank Street into the bright winter sun which blinded her may be considered the element of carelessness and as a consequence she did not see the unfortunate Mr Laird.
“It’s a tragedy for Mr Laird and the condolences of the court go out to his family because this is certainly not how they would want his life to come to a conclusion,” said Sheriff Davidson. “But, having said that, the injuries he sustained would have been survivable by anyone in ordinary health.”
In the circumstance, he was dealing with a “minor” case of careless driving and the appropriate penalty was a fine and six penalty points on Carr’s licence, he added.