Danger driver guilty of hitting woman who lost her unborn baby
A WOMAN lost her unborn child and had both her legs amputated after a horrific car smash, a court was told.
Darren Morrison was yesterday convicted of mowing down Julie Welsh, 40, in Glasgow in December 2020.
Ms Welsh was so badly injured that she needed her legs amputated below the knee and requires round-the-clock care.
Morrison, 20, from Glasgow, had denied a charge of causing serious injury by dangerous driving but a jury at the city’s Sheriff Court found him guilty following a three-day trial.
The court had heard from Graham Robertson, 44, who witnessed Ms Welsh being struck by the car that was ‘going quite fast’.
He said: ‘I would say from where she crossed the road, she was one metre from the kerb on the other side of the road to complete her journey.
‘She came off the left passenger side windscreen and she ended up further back on the road she was walking on impact.’
The support worker went to Ms Welsh’s aid until emergency services arrived. He said: ‘I thought she was dead. I heard rasping breaths, she was in a bad, bad way. Until the point I heard her making noises, she was lying in a distorted way. She was making choking noises.’
Another witness, Patricia Callaghan, 55, said she heard the car ‘revving, not slowing, if anything getting quicker’, then a bang and a screech. Road traffic collision expert PC John O’Hara said Morrison had a ‘full view [of the road] of 40 metres, for three seconds’.
In her closing speech to the jury, prosecutor Jessica McGowan said: ‘I invite you to accept Morrison should have had sight of her on approach to the hill.
‘He can’t explain why he didn’t see Julie Welsh, a moving object until she is in front of his car.
‘He can’t be sure that the reason he didn’t see her was because he was distracted – the consequences were catastrophic for her.
‘Morrison said it was a split second between seeing her and hitting her and in that split second Julie’s life as she knew it was taken away from her – her unborn baby was taken away from her.’
Morrison, his girlfriend and two other friends were heading back to his house to watch boxing after collecting food.
In his evidence, Morrison claimed: ‘I couldn’t have done anything differently.’
Ms Welsh suffered a traumatic head injury, a fractured top rib, a broken arm and extensive lower leg and pelvic injuries. She also had to have bone temporarily removed from her skull to stop a brain bleed.
Both of her legs were amputated below the knee and she remains under 24-hour specialist care.
She has severe brain damage, is blind in one eye, has no awareness of her external surroundings and cannot communicate.
The mother of one requires medical assistance to breathe and is fed through a tube. Her condition is unlikely to improve.
Morrison was disqualified from driving and granted bail by Sheriff Joan Kerr.
‘Julie’s life as she knew it was taken away’