I’m devastated... there’s not a day goes by that I don’t think of all those poor people I’M SORRY
Five years after Xmas bin lorry horror, driver f inally breaks silence to apologise
THE driver of a bin lorry that careered out of control and killed six people days before Christmas has spoken for the first time of his ‘devastation’ – and apologised to the victims.
Ahead of the fifth anniversary of the tragedy, Harry Clarke has described how he blacked out at the wheel of the 26-ton lorry, causing it to plough through crowds of shoppers in Glasgow city centre.
The 62-year-old said that ‘not a day goes by’ when he does not think about the horrific crash and those who died.
He has now given his own dramatic account of the tragedy, which took place in George Square on December 22, 2014. Despite repeatedly returning to the scene of the crash, Mr Clarke said he still cannot remember anything about the moment he blacked out.
He described vivid memories of regaining consciousness after the lorry finally came to a halt in the side of a hotel – and his dawning realisation of the carnage caused.
After the crash, an official inquiry blamed Mr Clarke for failing to disclose his medical history – including an episode when he was said to have fainted while he was working as a bus driver.
However, in an exclusive interview – the first time he has spoken at length about the incident – Mr Clarke insisted he did not lie and had never previously blacked out behind the wheel, claiming his medical condition had been wrongly presented during the inquiry.
Above all, he said he had chosen to speak to offer a fresh apology to the families of the victims. He said: ‘I am devastated at what happened. There’s all these poor people that are not here and those who were injured.
‘It has been made out that I don’t care about what happened. There’s not a day goes by I don’t think about it.
‘I’m sorry for the part I played in 2014, it was an accident. If I thought for a minute it was all my fault I’d jump off a bridge.’
Last night, one of the people seriously injured in the crash rejected his apology.
Marie Weatherall was shopping when the lorry hit her left side, breaking her ankle, leg, arm and shoulder. She said: ‘It makes no difference now. Life is what it is.
‘I wish the accident hadn’t happened and five years down the line it makes no difference to me what Harry Clarke says or does.’
Mr Clarke also confirmed he has ‘no intention’ of getting behind the wheel again and relies on his bus pass to get around, although he is often recognised when he goes out.
Father to a 32-year-old daughter, he is unemployed and lives alone.
He said: ‘If I go on public transport, I’m always looking around to see who’s around. I can’t go in busy places, that’s a no-no. I feel anxious and start sweating and I’ve got to get away from it.’
Tragedy struck three days before Christmas 2014, at 2.29pm, when Mr Clarke passed out at the wheel of the Glasgow City Council bin lorry. It ran along Queen Street, past the edge of George Square – which was packed with Christmas shoppers – for 19 seconds, stopping when it hit the Millennium Hotel.
As the truck veered off the road and onto the pavement, six people were killed and 15 others injured.
Erin McQuade, 18, and her grandparents Jack Sweeney, 68, and Lorraine Sweeney, 69, from Dumbarton, West Dunbartonshire, died, as did Stephenie Tait, 29, and Jacqueline Morton, 51, from Glasgow, and Gillian Ewing, 52, from Edinburgh.
One of two binmen also in the truck later recalled a desperate attempt to rouse Mr Clarke, punching
‘It makes no difference to me what Harry Clarke says or does’
him on the head in a failed bid to bring him round and shouting: ‘You’re killing people, Harry.’
Mr Clarke said of his colleagues: ‘They saw everything. I regard them as having a worse ordeal than me and they’ve got to live with what they’ve seen.’
He insisted the fainting fit that struck him came out of the blue. He said he was absolutely fine during his shift on the day of the crash.
Mr Clarke said: ‘I don’t remember what happened between turning onto Queen Street and when I woke up at the hotel. I just remember turning onto Queen Street. The next thing I knew, I was attached to the hotel at George Square. My mind is blank. I remember hearing a voice saying, “Harry, wake up”, as if he was in the distance. When I got out the truck the fireman helped me.
‘I was disorientated, my speech wasn’t right and I wasn’t taking it all in. I just saw blue lights.
‘I never knew what happened until hours later a doctor said there were fatalities. I didn’t know at that stage how many, or how many people were injured.
‘He told me because I kept asking what happened. When I found out how bad it was, I just couldn’t take in what had happened.’
He added: ‘My licence was clean
– there wasn’t even a speeding fine. I can’t get over the devastation.’
The Crown Office made the controversial decision not to prosecute Mr Clarke, arguing that despite the ‘catastrophic consequences’ there was no evidence that he had committed a crime.
He said: ‘I was glad because I knew it was an accident and I had never been in court in my life, so that terrified me. Six people died.
‘It’s awful for all of the families. The girl and her grandparents – that really got me. How do they move on from that?’
In the summer of 2015, a fatal accident inquiry (FAI) was held. It
concluded that Mr Clarke had suffered a blackout before, had lied about it and should not have been driving the bin lorry in 2014.
Evidence was heard that he had passed out in April 2010 when he was a bus driver, while he had been sitting behind the wheel of a stationary First Bus.
The FAI also heard that he gave two different accounts – one to his GP and another to the bus firm’s occupational health doctor. In his written judgment, Sheriff John Beckett, QC, found Mr Clarke had ‘repeatedly lied in order to gain and retain jobs and licences’ and had ‘deliberately concealed relevant information from the DVLA’.
But Mr Clarke has now challenged the FAI’s version of events. He denied he had ever blacked out before the bin lorry crash, or that he told any doctors in 2010 he had ever blacked out. Describing the 2010 incident, he said he had been in a bus on a warm day and ‘didn’t feel 100 per cent’.
Having transferred his passengers to another bus, he waited until he felt better then drove about a mile to see his inspector.
He said the superior had asked him if he had passed out and he said, ‘No, but I thought I was going to’. After being checked by paramedics, he said he returned to the depot then went off sick. He said he went to see his GP and told him there was an ‘event’ and that he also told the First Bus doctor what happened – but never said he blacked out. Mr Clarke said: ‘If First Bus have it noted that I conked out, why was I back driving a bus weeks later? ‘Why wasn’t I sent for tests? Nobody told me to phone the DVLA.
‘No professional driver will tell the DVLA about things unless they are told to – and if they are told to and they don’t... they would lose everything.’
It was noted in his medical records from April 2010 that Mr Clarke had suffered a vasovagal attack – a loss of consciousness, or faint. He claimed he never challenged this during the FAI after legal advice – but he had misunderstood the term and thought a vasovagal attack simply meant feeling dizzy. He also insisted that, when he applied for his job with Glasgow City Council, he gave permission for access to his medical records. During a medical questionnaire in December 2011 for the renewal of his HGV licence, Mr Clarke told a doctor he had not suffered from any blackouts or impaired consciousness in the past five years. He said: ‘I never blacked out, so I didn’t lie when I was asked in 2011 if I had blackouts and said, “No”.’ At the FAI, Mr Clarke infuriated families of the victims by refusing to answer most of the questions put to him. Now he says his silence was based on legal advice. Fearing he could face a private prosecution over the deaths, he was told he did not need to answer any question that could incriminate him.
He explained: ‘I was going to say what I wanted to say at the FAI but, due to the family saying they were going to go for a private prosecution, the legal advice at the time was, “Say nothing”. I would have been silly not to follow it.’
Although he cannot remember causing the devastation, Mr Clarke said: ‘I’ve gone up and down Queen Street maybe three times. The reason I’ve done that is to see if I can remember anything.’
After the FAI, Mr Clarke found himself back in the headlines on a number of occasions, including appearing at Glasgow Sheriff Court in February 2017, when he admitted reckless driving.
He had been spotted by a neighbour moving his motor from the car park at his flat in Baillieston, Glasgow, to the main road, only nine months after the tragedy – and after he had to surrender his driving licence on medical grounds.
Mr Clarke admitted the crime and was given 150 hours of unpaid work, a four-month curfew to stay in his home between 7pm and 7am, and was disqualified from driving for three years.
However, he has now vowed never to drive again, fearing he could once again black out.
He said: ‘Will it happen again? The doctors haven’t said it won’t. For my part, there’s no intention of ever getting back behind the wheel.
‘What happened that day was terrible. I don’t think I’ll get over the devastation that was caused.’