A Dundee man accused of causing his younger brother’s death in a horrific road crash broke down in tears as he told a jury of his desperate rescue efforts in the moments after the collision.
Lee Tucker said he tried to pull his brother Reece’s body out of the wreckage of his upturned BMW, after recovering two young children from the back seat.
The 34-year-old, on trial at the High Court in Stirling, said he could not explain why he lost control of his car on the A93 near Glenshee on January 3 2021.
His vehicle went onto a grass verge on the opposite side of the road, before striking a wall and fence post and rolling onto its roof.
Reece, 23, was so severely injured he died at the scene.
The two children, aged five and nine, in the back seat were also badly hurt and put in induced comas.
Scaffolder Tucker, of Ashmore Street, Kirkton, denies causing death and serious injury by dangerous driving. Prosecutors say seatbelts were not being used.
He insisted he was not driving at excessive speed.
On the third day of his trial, prosecutors dropped an allegation he was racing against another car in the moments before the crash.
Sledging trip
The jury heard Tucker had been asked by the youngsters’ mother that morning to take them sledging.
Tucker said he and his brother picked up the children at their home in Dundee, before heading to Glenshee via Coupar Angus and Blairgowrie.
The group of four left the ski resort at about 4pm.
He said he knew Reece and the boys had their seatbelts on because if they did not an in-car alarm would start “dinging.”
Tucker said he was travelling at between 40 and 50mph.
”The children said they were freezing, so I said once we’re back in Dundee I’d take them to McDonald’s for a hot chocolate.
“Reece was fine, he was on his phone.”
Tucker said he maybe overtook one or two cars but no more than one at a time and only when it was safe.
He wept as he described losing control on a left hand bend, after a hill in the road.
“I just remember the car kept going straight ahead.
”I grabbed the steering wheel as hard as I could and tried to turn it.
“I remember hitting the wall and then the car just sort of went and next I was on my roof.”
He said: “I’ve had my licence for 14 years and I still don’t know why that car didn’t go round that corner.”
Aftermath of crash
Tucker said when the car came to a stop, he unclipped his seatbelt and got out.
“I ran to the back door but it was locked.
“The back window was smashed, so I reached in and unclipped (the oldest boy) and pulled him out and put him to the side of the road.”
He did the same for the other child.
“Then I reached over to my brother.
“I tried to shake him and he wouldn’t move.
“I unclipped him and he fell onto the ceiling.
“I grabbed him and tried to pull him.”
Tucker broke down as he told the jury: “I remember this noise came from his mouth and then all this blood came out.”
He began shouting: “Help, help, help, my brother.”
Tucker was spoken to at the scene by police and tested negative for alcohol and drugs.
He was then placed in the back of a police car, where he watched two helicopters arrive for his young passengers.
Because of weather conditions, only the larger helicopter was able to take off.
Asked by defence solicitor advocate Iain Paterson what he would have done if he had been driving at excessive speed that day, Tucker said: “I would have taken my life.
“I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself knowing that I killed my brother.”
He said if he was guilty of driving too fast, he would have “held his hands up”.
Tucker told advocate depute Michael Macintosh that he was “100%” sure his passengers’ seatbelts were fastened.
He insisted he not been driving at excess speed.
‘Significant speed’
Earlier, collision investigator PC Malcolm Cameron, 35, told the court he visited the scene on the A93, south of Spittal of Glenshee, about four hours after the crash.
He said a rolling tyre mark suggested the car had gone straight onto a grass verge at the side of the opposite carriageway, struck a fence post and a stone wall and overturned, sliding along the road on its roof.
Asked by advocate depute Michael Macintosh if he could say how fast the car was going, the officer said the markings suggested it was going at a “significant” speed.
He told jurors it was estimated the BMW was travelling at about 45mph at impact but said would likely have decelerated before this point.
“In my opinion, loss of control has happened on a crest (in the road), just before entering a left hand bend,” he said.
In his report, he recorded the cause of the crash was “excessive speed, incorrect steering, braking or a combination of all three.”
Under cross-examination by defence solicitor advocate Iain Paterson, the officer said “road layout” and “distractions” were other possible contributory factors.
The report, co-written with a colleague, states they were unable to establish whether passengers were wearing seat belts but PC Cameron told the court in his opinion, they were not used in the back.
He could not “say either way” whether Reece Tucker had been wearing a seat belt.
‘Crazy speeds’
Witness Kirsty McEwan told the trial she had been driving to Blairgowrie after a day’s sledging with family in Glenshee when she was overtaken at “crazy speeds” by two cars.
She said she was on a straight stretch of road when a dark-coloured car overtook her and six or seven others in front of her at “over 60mph”.
The 36-year-old carer said: “I called the driver a f***ing idiot…. nobody in their right mind would drive at that speed in those conditions.”
She said a white car, thought to be a BMW, followed the dark car a short time later.
In her statement to police, she described both travelling at “crazy speeds.”
The trial has heard previously from others passed by the BMWs.
Tucker denies causing the death of his brother and seriously injuring two children, aged five and nine, by driving dangerously on January 3 2021.
The trial before Lord Young continues.
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