Traffic at Broxden, Perth, following the crash in June last year.
A retired accountant has been accused of causing the death of a friend in a car accident on one of the region’s busiest roads.
Iain Mortimer, 72, formerly linked to a string of property and investment companies, is said to have failed to keep an eye on the road ahead – crashing his Mercedes E-class into an articulated lorry parked in a lay-by beside the A9 dual carriageway in Perthshire on June 12.
It is alleged that the black Mercedes then cannoned off across the road, hitting a Vauxhall Astra.
Mortimer’s front-seat passenger, Mervyn Bowden, of Kirkhill, Inverness-shire, a 72-year-old widower and great-grandfather, died at the scene of the accident, north of Dunblane.
At an initial hearing at Stirling Sheriff Court on Friday, lawyers for Mortimer, of Beauly, Inverness-shire, wrote on their client’s behalf tendering no plea to causing Mr Bowden’s death by careless driving.
The single charge against him alleges that Mr Mortimer caused Mr Bowden’s death by driving his Mercedes without due care and attention or reasonable consideration for other persons using the road, and did “fail to maintain observation of the carriageway ahead”.
