A drink-driver who admitted killing a charity cyclist by hitting him and abandoning him by the side of the road has been jailed for 12 years.
Alexander McKellar, 31, caused the death of 63-year-old Tony Parsons by hitting him with his car on the A82 near Bridge of Orchy, Argyll and Bute, on September 29 2017.
Originally charged with murdering Mr Parsons, McKellar pleaded guilty to an amended charge of culpable homicide at the High Court in Glasgow last month.
McKellar and his twin brother Robert also admitted attempting to defeat the ends of justice.
Tony Parsons was killed while on a charity cycle in 2017 (family handout/PA)
McKellar was sentenced to 12 years behind bars when he appeared at the same court on Friday.
Robert McKellar was sentenced to five years and three months in jail.
Members of Mr Parsons’s family, including his widow Margaret and children Mike and Victoria, were in court for the sentencing.
READ MORE: Drink-driver who killed charity cyclist to be sentenced
McKellar admitted driving on the A82 at “excess speed and when unfit through alcohol”.
With “reckless disregard” for the consequences of his actions, he left Mr Parsons by the side of the road “in a remote location during the hours of darkness and in inclement weather”, causing his death.
Tony Parsons’s widow Margaret (second left) outside court with their children Mike and Victoria, right (Andrew Milligan/PA)
The court heard in a narrative last month how some time between September 29, 2017 and January 3, 2021, the McKellar brothers returned to the A82 and moved Mr Parsons’s body to the Auch Estate and buried him with an excavator in a peat bog where animal carcasses were disposed of.
Police launched a major investigation following a tip-off from a woman McKellar had begun a relationship with in 2020, the court heard.
She had asked him if there was anything from his past that may affect their relationship, and he told her he had hit Mr Parsons with an Isuzu D-Max pick-up while speeding.
READ MORE: Killer driver's partner told police where cyclist’s body was hidden
Advocate depute Alex Prentice KC told the court that McKellar had said to the woman that he had been “distracted” by headlights and struck something on the side of the A82, which turned out to be Mr Parsons.
The woman left a can of Red Bull in the area where Mr Parsons’s body had been hidden and detectives later found the scene.
Robert McKellar has been jailed after he admitted attempting to defeat the ends of justice (Police Scotland/PA)
The brothers also hid Mr Parsons’s bicycle behind a waterfall on the Auch Estate but this has never been recovered, the court heard.
The two men were arrested on December 20, 2020 and Mr Parsons’s body was recovered for forensic investigation in January 2021.
Mr Parsons was killed while on a 100-mile charity cycle from his home in Tillicoultry, Clackmannanshire, to Fort William.
A missing persons inquiry was launched on October 2, 2017 when he failed to return home.
The cyclist’s family released a statement after the guilty pleas, saying he loved “nothing more” than spending time with his grandchildren.
The statement said: “As you can imagine, not knowing what has happened to someone and then the devastating news that we were provided has taken its toll on all of us as a family.
“At last justice has been done and we would like to thank not only the court officials and officers from Police Scotland’s major investigation team, Forth Valley Division; and other Police Scotland departments who worked on this case, but all the volunteers and mountain rescue teams who tirelessly searched for him in the earlier stages of the inquiry.”
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel