‘It’s too late!’ Court hears how lawyer drove head-on into car and killed three
A DRIVER yesterday told a court of the impossible life- or- death decision she faced seconds before a horrific car crash which killed her husband and the wife and daughter of a leading Scottish lawyer.
Confronted by a car heading straight for her on the wrong side of the road, German tourist Ursula Hayajneh, 59, said trying to swerve out of the way would have caused her to hit another car travelling in front of her.
In that heart- stopping moment she struggled to make a split-second decision on which way to turn before crying out: ‘It’s too late!’
Mrs Hayajneh realised she did not have time to get out of the way of the on-coming vehicle, an Audi, being driven on the A9 by Andrew Houston, 38, a leading solicitor advocate.
The lawyer’s wife and seven-year-old daughter also died in the collision near Newtonmore, Inverness-shire, on July 9, 2013, after the cars collided head-on and were thrown into the air.
Describing the accident to police from her hospital bed, Mrs Hayajneh had said: ‘It was right there in front of me – like looking at a 3D cinema screen.’
Yesterday the housewife, from Duisburg, was giving evidence at Houston’s trial at Inverness Sheriff Court. He is accused of causing the deaths of his wife, Abigail, 42, his daughter, Mia, and 62year- ol d GP Dr Mohammed Ali Hayajneh.
Houston’s daughter, Lily, ten, who was a rear- seat passenger with her sister, survived the impact. But both she and her father were seriously injured.
Houston, of Edinburgh, denies driving carelessly by crossing on to the opposite
‘Husband may have been alive today’
carriageway, into the path of a car driven by a Polish tourist, Zbigniew Suski, who had to take evasive action.
Houston’s car then hit Mrs Hayajneh’s vehicle, causing the three deaths, the charge states.
In agreed evidence between prosecutor Roderick Urquhart and Houston’s QC, Frances McMenamin, the jury heard that Houston was not on a mobile phone at the time.
Houston winced, shut his eyes tight and choked back tears as the names of his dead wife and daughter were read out in the joint minute.
Mrs Hayajneh took the witness box with the aid of an interpreter but answered most questions in English.
She told the court: ‘I had made a present to my husband of a golf tour from east to west and we came to Hull on the ferry on July 5.
‘We went first to Edinburgh and then to St Andrews before travelling on to Inverness. I was travelling between 60-80kmph (37-50mph) and there was a lot of traffic behind me and a small car in front.
‘Suddenly I saw the small car go to the left off the road. Then I saw the black car coming direct for me on my side of the road.
‘I had no time to do anything. If I go to the left I hit the small car, and I thought I had to go to the right side. It was happening fast and then I cried “it’s too late!”.’
Mrs Hayajneh, who was driving a silver Jeep Cherokee, told police in hospital three days after the collision: ‘I thought I would go to the right, but then the dark car also went to the left – and my right – and I thought “dammit!” I had to make an instant decision. If I went to the left the small car was there. So I tried to go to the right.
‘If I had went to the left, my husband may have been alive today. But I would have hit the other car.’
Account manager Barry Johnston told the court that he had wit- nessed the crash as he travelled north on business.
The 58-year- old said: ‘ The dark car veered over the white lines and I could see there was going to be a collision.
‘On impact, both vehicles went into the air and down again on to the middle of the road.’
Paul Gow, 31, a joiner from Speyside, said he had been a passenger in a Transit van which had to swerve off the road to avoid a collision.
He told the court: ‘I don’t know how we managed to miss it. I remember seeing the Audi swerve on to our side of the carriageway and my driver shouting: “What’s he doing?”
‘It seemed as if the Audi was going togo in a straight line towards our side as it came round a left-hand bend going south.’
Houston is a senior partner at McSporrans defence solicitors, in Edinburgh, and has appeared in courts for more than 20 years.
He qualified as a solicitor advocate in 2004, allowing him to conduct serious high court cases.
The trial, before Sheriff David Sutherland, continues.