The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Judges reject families’ plea to prosecute bin lorry driver
COURT: Anger at backing for Crown Office decision
Glasgow bin lorry crash driver Harry Clarke will not face a private prosecution over the tragedy.
In a rare legal move, relatives of three crash victims sought permission from senior judges to bring charges against the 59-year-old.
It followed a controversial Crown Office decision not to prosecute Mr Clarke, who had blacked out behind the wheel on the day of the fatal crash almost two years ago.
Three judges at the Appeal Court in Edinburgh ruled yesterday the family could not launch a private prosecution. The court also rejected a similar plea for a private prosecution of motorist William Payne, by the families of students Mhairi Convy and Laura Stewart, who were knocked down and killed in Glasgow in 2010.
Judge Lady Dorrian said they did not consider the state of knowledge of either motorist “can reasonably be elevated to the degree necessary to be capable of establishing beyond reasonable doubt that on the day in question they drove in the face of an obvious danger”. Relatives voiced disappointment. Mhairi Convy’s father Alan said: “If this ruling is the law, then the law is wrong in our eyes. It needs changed.” A lorry driven by Mr Clarke went out of control in Queen Street on December 22, 2014. It killed Jack and Lorraine Sweeney, 68 and 69, their granddaughter Erin McQuade, 18, Stephenie Tait, 29, Jacqueline Morton, 51, and Gillian Ewing, 52.
The Crown said it acknowledged the distress caused to the relatives by the decision not to prosecute the drivers.
A spokesman said: “The Crown has an obligation to take decisions of this nature professionally and dispassionately, on the basis of the evidence.”
If this ruling is the law, then the law is wrong in our eyes.