The head of a top university’s centre for peace and conflict studies “took out her anger” on a teenager and “tried to run him down”, a trial has heard.
Dr Hazel Cameron the director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the St Andrews University School of International Relations faces a charge of dangerous driving over an alleged incident in rural Fife last year.
She is accused of driving her car at Thomas Struthers, who was skateboarding on the road at the time, and forcing him to take evasive action to avoid a collision.
Mr Struthers, 19, told a trial at Dundee Sheriff Court he had been out on his board on June 29 last year when the incident occurred. He said he and his friend, Cameron Hopkin, were boarding on a single-track road between the A913 and the hamlet of Glenduckie, where both his family and the accused live.
Mr Struthers said he heard the car coming round a blind bend as he moved up the hill, then tried to cross on to a two-metre-wide verge to get out of the way.
But he claimed her Land Rover Freelander was going too fast for him to make it across the road and that she sped up as he clambered on to a narrower verge closer to him.
He said he believed she had driven at him because of a dispute between herself and his father, Michael Struthers. “She tried to hit me. Because of the dispute between her and my dad, that is why she was trying to hit me,” he said.
The court heard Mr Struthers’ father had been detained by police days after the incident because of a complaint made by Cameron.
Mr Struthers added: “I didn’t know about their disputes. She knew about the disputes so she took out her anger on me. The car missed me by about six inches. I had to lean over the fence into a field to avoid it.”
But defence solicitor Gemma Miller said: “There has been quite a lot of dispute between your father and Hazel Cameron. I have to put it to you that you have concocted this story after your father was detained.”
Mr Struthers replied: “It did happen.”
Cameron, 48, of Castlehill, Glenduckie, denies a charge of dangerous driving on summary complaint. The trial will conclude in November.