Bin lorry driver jailed for reversing into man in wheelchair

● Neither driver nor co-worker saw former linguist behind them

0 Scott Hamilton has been sentenced to a year in prison over the incident A bin lorry driver who killed a pensioner by reversing into his electric wheelchair has been jailed.

Scott Hamilton, who was working for Stirling Council, failed to check behind him before backing up to let a car past on a country road.

Neither he nor his driver’s mate noticed that disabled Peter Wills, 80, a linguist who had worked for M15 as a Russian interpreter before teaching in Stirlingshire schools, was behind them.

The 7.5-tonne truck collided with Mr Wills’ 4mph wheelchair with a “thud”.

Hamilton, 44, appeared for sentence at the High Court in Stirling after the Crown accepted his plea of guilty to causing death by careless driving on the second day of a jury trial last month.

Judge Lord Ericht told him that no sentence but a custodial one was appropriate.

He sentenced him to one year’s imprisonment, adding that had he not pleaded guilty it would have been 15 months.

He also banned him from driving for 12 months.

He told him: “Mr Wills enjoyed the freedom that his motorised wheelchair gave him. Almost every day in life he was out and about on country roads near his home.

“By your actions, you have caused his death, and the end of a marriage which his widow said was ‘paradise’.

“That is something you’ll have to live with for the rest of your life.

“At the time of the incident you were well aware of the risks of reversing.

“You were aware that Mr Wills was somewhere on the road behind you, as you had passed him a couple of min- utes previously. You failed to have proper regard to Mr Wills as a particularly vulnerable road user.”

The incident happened around mid-morning on 3 December 2014 on a single track road near the Sheriffmuir Battlefield, above Dunblane, Perthshire, yards from the 18th century former drovers’ inn where Mr Wills and his American wife of 50 years, Virginia, lived, and which he had personally restored before a stroke eight years earlier robbed him of speech and partially paralysed him.

Advocate depute Jane Farquharson said: “Mr Wills’ lifeendinginjuriesweresustained as a direct result of the impact with the rear of the refuse lorry as it reversed backwards.”

Investigators found furrows on the tarmac which indicated the wheelchair had been pushed backwards for threequarters of a metre before it was pushed over and crushed.