SCOTLAND'S first female chief constable veered on to the wrong side of the road and smashed into another car, a court has heard.

Norma Graham, 49, who has since retired as the head of Fife Police, was seriously injured when her Audi Quattro crashed into a Renault Clio in February last year.

She was driving towards the Glenrothes police headquarters, on the B922, at around 8am when the "incredible collision" happened. The court heard witnesses rushed to the cars to help the drivers, and both were taken to hospital.

Hannah Shedden, 25, who was driving the Clio, told a trial at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court she had just pulled out her driveway in Kinglassie, Fife, when she saw the car heading towards her.

Miss Shedden, who was on her way to work as a physiotherapist in Falkirk, broke down in tears as the depute fiscal, Adrian Cottam, showed her a picture of her car following the accident and asked her to explain what happened. She said: "I pulled out on to the road and was accelerating, and then I saw a car heading towards me so I hit my brakes.

"The car was on my side of the road and it was heading straight towards me.

"I remember going through in my head that I could keep straight, steer into the other side of the road or into a stone wall so I kept straight, then we collided."

Miss Shedden told the court that she spent three days in hospital where they discovered that she had broken her collar bone and required surgery on her left knee.

She said she had to take four months off work and her car was written off.

A witness to the crash, Laura Binney, 34, said that she was driving behind the Clio when she saw the Audi driving towards it on the wrong side of the road.

She said: "The car collided at an angle and the cars kind of bounced off each other. I stopped about 30 metres away. There was smoke coming from both cars. I heard shouting coming from the Clio so I got out my car and ran towards it".

She said she then got the woman out the car but she had trouble walking, so sat her down on some coats.

Miss Binney's partner, Graham Campbell, 49, said the Audi "came out of nowhere".

He said: "It was an incredible impact. The Renault was up on its nose then came back again and there was a lot of smoke. It was very dramatic."

He said it looked like the Clio was travelling at around 40mph, with the Audi at 50mph.

Graham, of Dalkeith, Midlothian, is accused of driving carelessly and failing to keep her Audi under control, causing it to collide with the Clio, damaging both cars and injuring both drivers.

The offence is said to have taken place on the B922 Cluny to Kinglassie Road, on February 7, 2012.

She has pled not guilty.

Graham was thought to be the first serving chief constable in Scotland to have appeared in court as an accused when she was first summoned.

Investigator Alistair Bain concluded in his report that the crash happened due to "an unknown driving error of the Audi driver". He said. "It's unlikely the observed ice patches are capable of causing a loss of control for the Audi.

"The accident potentially occurred due to the Audi driver taking longer than the expected one or two seconds reaction time.

"It could have been full emergency braking was not fully applied, or applied in time by the Audi. Or it could be the Audi was travelling at more than 60 miles per hour."

The trial, before Sheriff Grant McCulloch, continues.