FAMILIES bidding to bring historic private prosecutions against the driver of a Glasgow bin lorry which killed six people and another driver whose Range Rover killed two young women will return to court today.
The Court of Session in Edinburgh has been hearing evidence from relatives of pedestrians killed by Harry Clarke’s bin lorry in December 2014, and an earlier incident involving a Range Rover driven by William Payne.
Both men collapsed at the wheel of their vehicles and the families are seeking separate private prosecutions – based on causing death by dangerous driving – against them.
Proceedings were originally scheduled to take place over two days this week but have overrun and will continue today.
Relatives applied for a Bill of Criminal Letters, which would enable them to bring the prosecutions after the Crown Office ruled it would not do so. The action has been brought by lawyers acting for the families of Jack and Lorraine Sweeney, aged 68 and 69, and their granddaughter Erin McQuade, 18, in the bin lorry crash in Queen Street and George Square.
Three other people died.
Judges are also considering an application to prosecute Mr Payne, lodged by the families of friends Mhairi Convy, 18, and Laura Stewart, 20, who were knocked down and killed in Glasgow’s North Hanover Street in December 2010. Due to legal restrictions, the detail of proceedings in the court cannot be reported. They were adjourned for legal arguments to be heard.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article