Bin lorry crash family hit back at law chief
SCOTLAND’s most senior law officer has been accused of ‘defending the indefensible’ in an increasingly bitter war of words over a BBC documentary about the Glasgow bin lorry tragedy.
Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland fired off a furious memo after watching the programme, claiming it contained allegations about Crown blunders based on ‘inaccuracies and innuendo’.
These included claims that one high-ranking civil servant called the lorry’s driver ‘fat and uneducated’ in a meeting with victims’ families and that senior Crown officials decided not to prosecute driver Harry Clarke before they found out he collapsed at the wheel of a bus in 2010.
Six people were killed when Mr Clarke fell unconscious while driving a council refuse truck in December last year.
In the BBC documentary Lies, Laws and the Bin Lorry Tragedy, several victims’ relatives made claims about their treatment by the Crown’s Scottish Fatalities Investigation Unit.
But Mr Mulholland circulated an angry internal memo expressing his ‘concern’ at some of the claims and insisting they were ‘simply not true’.
However, the memo was leaked and yesterday the son of one victim reacted bitterly to the Lord Advocate’s assertions, accusing him of attempting to cover up mistakes made by his team.
Adam Russell, whose mother, Jackie Morton, was among those who died, branded the comments ‘imprudent’ and ‘a distraction’ as families await the determination of a Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) into the tragedy.
In a statement issued through his lawyers, Mr Russell said the Crown’s ‘continued defence of an indefensible position only undermines public confidence in them’. Mr Russell said he was adamant that when the Morton family and members of their legal team met with the SFIU in March, the senior prosecutor present told them that Mr Clarke had fainted in April 2010 while at lunch.
A six-week FAI into the tragedy heard evidence that Mr Clarke had collapsed while behind the wheel of a stationary bus while working as a driver for First Bus.
Mr Russell said: ‘[The prosecutor] made no mention of the episode happening on a stationary bus. Either the Crown Office did not have the full information when they took the decision not to prosecute in February or we were misled.’
Last night, a Crown Office spokesman insisted it had ‘repeatedly explained in public that we had all the relevant evidence before the decision was taken not to prosecute the driver of the bin lorry’.