VICTIMS WOULD STILL BE ALIVE
Crash could have been avoided if he had revealed medical history to employers, doctors and DVLA
THE six bin lorry tragedy victims would still be alive if the driver had not ‘repeatedly lied’ about his shocking medical history in order to keep his job, a fatal accident inquiry has found.
Harry Clarke collapsed at the wheel of his vehicle causing it to career out of control along a packed Glasgow city centre street three days before Christmas last year.
Those in its path stood little chance as the 26-ton lorry mounted a pavement on Queen Street, before smashing into the side of a hotel in George Square.
Within weeks, the Crown Office had decided not to prosecute Mr Clarke, but a sheriff’s devastating report following a six-week FAI found the tragedy would have been entirely avoidable if the driver had told the truth about his ill health.
Sheriff John Beckett, QC, found the 58-year-old had ‘repeatedly lied in order to gain and retain jobs and licences’, and ‘deliberately concealed relevant information from the DVLA’, including the fact that he suffered a previous blackout while at the wheel of a stationary bus.
Effectively blaming Mr Clarke for the crash, Sheriff Beckett said it would have been avoided if the driver had told the truth about the previous blackout and his medical history to doctors working for his previous employer FirstBus, Glasgow City Council and the DVLA.
The sheriff found eight ‘reasonable precautions’ – all relating to Mr Clarke’s medical past – which could have prevented the accident had the opportunities been acted upon.
He made a further 19 recommendations to close loopholes in the law and help reduce the chance of a further tragedy, including stricter checks during the medical assessments of drivers of public vehicles, fitting extra emergency brakes in bin lorries and stricter DVLA sanctions for drivers who fail to reveal their full medical history.
In a detailed and damning 183-page determination, Sheriff Beckett reserved his harshest words for Mr Clarke, accusing him of lying to three doctors who examined him after he fainted at the wheel of a bus in April, 2014.
As a result, none of those doctors told him to report his full health history to the DVLA, something they could have done if they had been aware of the full facts.
The sheriff said: ‘Mr Clarke deceived all three doctors in the
‘Inaccurate and untrue’
hope he would be able to return to work sooner rather than later so that he would not lose his job.’
He went on: ‘It may well be that the single most useful outcome of this inquiry would be to raise awareness of the dangers involved in driving if subject to a medical condition which could cause the driver to lose control of a vehicle.’
Sheriff Beckett said Mr Clarke had repeatedly failed to admit the truth – to himself, his doctors, the DVLA and his employers. His dishonesty meant that eight interlinked precautions that could have prevented the crash were not acted upon.
Even without making official disclosures to the three doctors and the DVLA, the sheriff said Mr Clarke could have privately concluded he was unfit to be at the wheel and not applied to be a minibus driver and then a bin lorry driver for Glasgow City Council.
It was concluded that the driver ‘made inaccurate and untrue declarations’ in two health questionnaires – one after he successfully applied for a council school bus driver job and another when he was promoted to HGV driver in 2011.
The sheriff added there were several steps that could have been taken by the doctors or by Glasgow City Council and FirstBus if they had known the whole truth about his blackout and medical history.
Their advice to Mr Clarke and his employers would have been different. First Glasgow should have provided a ‘full, accurate and fair’ employment reference to Glasgow City Council.
The sheriff also raised concerns about apparent weaknesses in the law for drivers who fail to tell the DVLA about health issues that could affect their ability to drive. The current self-reporting system is open to abuse, he suggested. Victims’ relatives were furious after the Crown Office repeatedly insisted that it could not prosecute Mr Clarke for dangerous driving or failing to notify the DVLA of his past blackouts because the driver had no way of knowing that he would faint on the tragic day.
With one family preparing to mount a private prosecution in the New Year, it emerged during the inquiry that there had been several other cases in which drivers with health problems were not prosecuted for accidents, including one fatality, on the same grounds.
The Crown Office stressed the sheriff had effectively cleared it of any blame for failing to bring a prosecution over the crash. He had, it said, made no findings ‘that undermine the decisions not to prosecute the driver’.
Implying that the burden of improving the system lay with the UK Government, it said Solicitor General Lesley Thomson had written to Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin asking him to address weaknesses in the DVLA selfreporting system.
The Crown said Mr Clarke could not have known that his medical history made him a potential threat behind the wheel because no doctor had told him that – even though the sheriff found that the driver had kept doctors in the dark about his true state of health.
Prosecutors insisted there was insufficient evidence in criminal
‘He blacked out like a light switch’
law to charge Mr Clarke, adding: ‘It is important to note the sheriff was considering evidence at an FAI where a lesser standard of proof is required and where more relaxed rules of evidence apply.
‘A criminal prosecution requires sufficient evidence to the much higher standard beyond reasonable doubt.’
When he gave evidence to the FAI, Mr Clarke was told by the sheriff that he did not have to answer questions which could incriminate him. He answered hundreds of questions from lawyers with ‘no comment’ but did talk of the crash itself, saying he blacked out ‘like a light switch’.
The driver, who had a history of medical issues dating back to 1976, was later suspended from his council job and resigned before he was due to face a disciplinary hearing.
Mr Clarke told a BBC documentary that he ‘unreservedly’ apologises for his role in the tragedy.
In a letter to the broadcaster, he said: ‘I understand that the impact of this event on me is irrelevant when compared to the loss that the families of the victims have suffered.’
A Glasgow City Council spokesman said it would take on board all the sheriff ’s recommendations, adding: ‘There is nothing we can say that will ease the pain and suffering of the bereaved but our primary concern throughout has been for the families of those who lost their lives and those who were injured in this terrible accident, and that will always remain the case.
‘Sheriff Beckett has made a number of recommendations and we are now considering how to implement them.’
The DVLA said it was closely studying the findings.
Praising the victims’ relatives, Sheriff Beckett concluded: ‘The whole country was deeply shocked by what happened but for the families of six people who died, the consequences extend beyond shock to the pain of permanent loss.
‘[It] cannot have been easy to listen to the evidence, but many relatives steadfastly attended the inquiry demonstrating their love, loyalty and commitment for those they have lost.’