ONE of the survivors of the Glasgow bin lorry crash has appealed to the driver at the centre of the tragedy to "own up" and apologise for what he did.
Marie Weatherall, 65, who was critically injured and in hospital for four weeks after she was one of the first to be struck by the out-of-control vehicle, attended the fatal accident inquiry when Harry Clarke uttered "no comment" some 170 times when asked questions about the George Square smash that left six people dead.
She believes he holds the key to enabling the families of all those touched by what happened on December 22 to get justice and has called for a prosecution.
She says she cannot understand why the Crown Office jumped the gun by deciding not to press charges before the Fatal Accident Inquiry had concluded.
Lawyers for the family of one of the six victims of tragedy have applied to the High Court for permission to bring a private prosecution against Mr Clarke with the FAI hearing he fell unconscious at the wheel of the bin lorry when before it crashed.
If it went ahead, anything Mr Clarke said in the FAI could be used against him in a subsequent trial.
The inquiry has already heard that Mr Clarke was unconscious at the wheel of the Glasgow City Council bin lorry when it veered out of control on Queen Street on 22 December, killing six people and injuring 15 others.
Ms Weatherall, a social researcher who lives in Glasgow's south side says she can still only walk slowly and cannot run after suffering a broken left arm and leg in the crash that knocked her unconscious and left her spending five days in a high dependency ward.
She recalls very little of what happened, but remembers changing her travel plans during her last-minute shopping trip that meant she took the bus to George Square on the fateful day.
"I think he needs to own up, he needs to own the fact that that is what he did," he said. "I just think I made a decision on that day which was different to what I had planned and it landed me in George Square and if he hadn't lied in those forms, he just wouldn't have been there, would he. He lied and people died.
"I just can't understand why they made the decision (not to prosecute) before the fatal accident inquiry because my understanding is that they didn't have to. There should be a prosecution."
Ms Weatherall, who has two daughters, a son and three grandchildren, said she attended the inquiry "to be part of the process" and said it was "quite cathartic".
She said: "It was strange seeing him sitting there, I have to say. I thought I'd see a broken man and I don't think I did.
"He wasn't arrogant, and I said I didn't think he was very bright, in the sense that he probably felt it was easier to say 'no comment' to everything than to answer anything."
She added: "He can't apologise, can he. But he did say once, after the crash, that his thoughts and heart go out to the people and quite graphically described his experience of what happened to him on the day. The fact he couldn't apologise at the hearing, lowered him in my estimation."
The former Refugee Council volunteer co-ordinator who moved to Glasgow from Ipswich four years ago said the FAI triggered one vivid memory of the moment of impact.
"It was really strange because when Harry Clarke said yesterday that the lights went out, I just thought, my God, that's exactly how I felt.
"It was like a big metal door hit me on the head and I did actually think for a split second, well, that's it, this is the end, this is how it ends, I will never know what happens next. Then everything went black. Then the lights came on again and I was in hospital.
"I don't use the word 'lucky' for what happened to me, because I think that if I say I was lucky not be killed, that reduces those who were killed to unlucky and that is wrong."
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