Woman driver fined after head-on collision

A psychotherapist caused a head-on collision after overtaking a tractor on a Fife road.

Lorna Allport, 49, was fined after she admitted driving carelessly by performing the manoeuvre on the A917 Anstruther to Crail road on September 3 2019.

Jane Dunlop suffered a broken rib and bruising after Allport drove into the path of her car.

Fiscal depute Michael Dunlop said at Dundee Sheriff Court: “The accused found herself behind a tractor and overtook the tractor into the path of the oncoming traffic.

“Both vehicles were extensively damaged.

“The complainer was taken to Ninewells Hospital for a fractured rib and bruising . No further surgery was required.”

Allport, of Kirkintilloch, pleaded guilty to driving carelessly by overtaking a tractor when unsafe to do so and colliding with Jane Dunlop’s vehicle causing extensive damage to both vehicles. She was previously charged with driving dangerously.

Defence solicitor Doug McConnell said: “I don’t think I can get across how devastated she was about this incident.”

Sheriff Alastair Carmichael fined Allport £600 and imposed six points on her licence.

John’s book also tells the stories of two archbishops from St Andrews – one a victim, one a villain.

“Of all the assassinations in Scottish h i s t o r y, Archbishop James Sharp of St Andrews was perhaps the unluckiest victim because he wasn’t the first choice,” says John.

In the 1630s, Presbyterian Covenanters had resisted Charles I’s efforts to impose bishops north of the border, and their struggle continued long after the Restoration of his son, Charles II, in 1660.

“On May 3 1679, a couple of local lairds, a weaver and six tenant farmers gathered on Magus Moor, near St

Andrews, to try to kill the sheriff-substitute of Fife, a leading persecutor of the Covenanters, who they were expecting to come by,” says John.

“There was no sign of him, but just as it looked as though they had been wasting their time they were tipped off that Archbishop Sharp’s coach was approaching.

“Sharp had played an important role in restoring Charles II to the throne, the subsequent imposition of bishops on the Church in Scotland, and the suppress ion o f Presbyterianism.

“To the plotters, it must have seemed a shame to let their efforts go to waste, so the approach of Sharp looked like, literally, a godsend.

“The carriage tried to make off, but the assassins pursued it for half a mile, firing their pistols.”

Ultimately, he was “set about furiously” with the assassins’ swords until he lay dead.

A century before, the nephew of another archbishop of St Andrews, John Hamilton, carried out the first known assassination by firearm in Europe.

“During the fierce power struggle between Protestants and Catholics in the 16th Century, the

Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, abdicated in 1567, but tried to make a comeback the following year, until the Protestant Earl of Moray, acting as regent for her son, won final victory at Langside.

“Among those fighting on her side was Ja m e s Hamilton, the archbishop’s nephew.

“On January 23 1570, as Moray was riding through L i n l i t h g o w, Ha m i l t o n waited for him in a house owned by the archbishop.

“He hit Moray with a bullet of tempered steel shot through the window.”

According to one account, he escaped on a waiting horse.

Abraham Lincoln “was, quite literally, caught off guard” when he was assassinated.