Locked up for ten years, trucker who crashed HGV into girlfriend’s house
A LORRY driver who deliberately crashed an HGV into his partner’s home in a drunken rage was jailed for ten years yesterday.
Derek Wellington, 34, flew into a fury after his girlfriend, Sara Cassidy, refused to meet him, despite a court order banning him from going near the mother-of-two.
Wellington screamed down the phone: ‘I am going to park my lorry in your living room.’
Miss Cassidy, 33, later left her home in East Kilbride, Lanarkshire, and saw Wellington driving past in his articulated lorry. Witnesses described a noise ‘like an earthquake’ as Wellington repeatedly reversed his HGV into Miss Cassidy’s house, wrecking it.
The destruction left a £475,000 repair bill, with Miss Cassidy and a neighbour losing their homes.
A friend and two children who were inside escaped unhurt.
Wellington, of Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, appeared by video link for sentence at the High Court in Stirling after pleading guilty to charges including culpable and reckless endangerment of lives.
He was told by judge Lord Armstrong that as a result of his actions, Miss Cassidy had lost the home she had lived in for five years, and its £25,000 contents.
Lord Armstrong said ‘taking into account the grave consequences’ of Wellington’s criminal actions, the number of people affected, the impact on their lives, and the financial loss, he was satisfied there was no appropriate alternative to a custodial sentence.
The court heard Wellington, who had 24 previous convictions, including for assault and threatening behaviour, had been on a bail order at the time of the incident in September last year.
The condition was imposed after he left Miss Cassidy, who he had begun dating earlier that year, needing hospital treatment a month earlier by attacking her at an Edinburgh hotel.
He had headbutted her and dragged her and pinned her against a wall. After the truck incident, police arrived to find a scene of destruction, with a number of residents out on the street.
The damaged truck, still with a load of woodchips, was found abandoned in a supermarket car park the next morning with Wellington’s wallet inside.
Clyde Valley Housing Association ended up with a bill totalling £475,000 due to damage and loss of rental income.
Wellington also pleaded guilty to assaulting Miss Cassidy in the Edinburgh incident, breaching bail, assaulting a police officer by spitting, and statutory breach of the peace.
Solicitor-advocate Iain Paterson, defending, said Wellington was ‘remorseful’ and had believed there was no one in the house.