A COUNCIL bin lorry driver reversed into and killed an 80-year-old stroke victim on an electric mobility scooter on a country road, a court has heard.
Scott Hamilton, 44, was driving the Stirling Council lorry when he had to reverse to give an oncoming car space to pass him on a single track road in Sheriffmuir, near Dunblane, Perthshire, the High Court in Stirling was told yesterday.
A jury heard that Mr Hamilton, who denies a charge of causing death by dangerous driving, put the lorry into reverse after asking his assistant, Lee McEwan to check the nearside mirror on December 3, 2014.
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The pair failed to notice that retired teacher Peter Wills, 80, was there. Mr Wills used his scooter daily to watch wildlife and red kites near his home in Sheriffmuir, the court heard.
Mr McEwan, 20, said the seven and a half tonne truck collided with a “thud”.
He said they had passed Mr Wills on his scooter a little earlier.
He said: “We had to reverse to give the Audi space to get through. Scott just says if I could see anything in my mirror and I said ‘no’ and he put the motor into reverse.
“It was just a split second thing. He put it into reverse and then it just happened. We assumed there was nothing there. We went back a few yards and then we heard the thud.
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“Obviously I had seen him [Mr Wills] at the bottom of the road, and that was the first thing that came into my head. I thought, oh no, it must have been him. You think the worst, and we jumped out, and it was the worst.”
Mr McEwan said Mr Wills’ scooter was lodged between two beams at the back of the lorry, and Mr Wills was on the road, with “blood gushing out of his head”.
He phoned 999, and Hamilton gave Mr Wills CPR until the emergency services arrived. Paramedics found Mr Wills unconscious and with no pulse.
He died of multiple broken ribs, and a broken neck, which would have impacted his spinal cord and stopped him breathing.
Mr McEwan told the advocate depute, Jane Farquharson, that he had received training in the role of “banksman”, or reversing assistant, from the council.
However, he said the lorry did not need one because they were smaller than the recycling lorries normally used. He said: “I wasn’t asked to be a banksman on that vehicle. I was just emptying boxes.
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“If I was asked to be that, I’d have done that. I was only an apprentice at the time.”
He added that after the incident he and Mr Hamilton had “done their best” to try to save Mr Wills.
The driver of the oncoming Audi car, Iain Dick, 60, said that at the point where he met the lorry, it was much easier for the lorry to reverse than it would have been for him. The lorry went back about 6.5 ft, and he heard a “grating sound” and the bin lorry driver looked agitated, Mr Dick added.
He said: “It was shocking, something I had never seen in my life before and hope never to see again.”
He recalled seeing the “remains” of the scooter and Mr Wills lying on the ground “in very serious distress”.
Mr Hamilton, he said, was crying and said words to the effect of: “I didn’t see him, I didn’t see him”.
The trial before Lord Ericht continues.
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