A WOMAN was charged with causing the death of a pensioner who was struck by her runaway car after she allegedly failed to use the handbrake.

Shirley Denovan, 59, is accused of parking on a hill without applying the brake, leaving the vehicle in gear or angling the wheels towards the kerb.

Prosecutors allege by ignoring advice from the Highway Code, she allowed the car to roll down the hill and collide with 75-year-old pedestrian Thomas Hamilton. Denovan, of Beith, Ayrshire, denies driving without due care and attention or reasonable consideration for others in the town's Townhead Road in August 2013. She faces trial at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court in September.

Mr Hamilton was dragged through a garden and pinned to a house in the incident.