IN February this year the Crown Office announced that there would be no criminal charges against the driver at the centre of the fatal bin lorry crash in Glasgow last December, or against Glasgow City Council. At the time I felt that that announcement was premature, unnecessary and unhelpful. In light of the evidence now emerging from the Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) into the accident ("Bin lorry driver 'lied'", The Herald, July 30), the Crown Office's decision becomes all the more astonishing and inexplicable.
If the Crown Office was not aware of the lorry driver's medical history when it announced its intention not to prosecute him, then its decision was seriously negligent. If it was aware of that history, it would be very interesting to know on what basis its senior lawyers concluded that there was no evidence that the lorry driver had committed any criminal act. Similarly, how rigorously did the Crown Office investigate Glasgow City Council's procedures for the safe employment and monitoring of its drivers, before giving the council a clean bill of health?
It seems to me that the Crown Office, by its ill-considered and hasty actions, has compounded an already tragic situation by adding not only to the grief of the victims' families but also to that of the lorry driver and his family.
Iain Stuart,
34 Oakbank Crescent, Perth.
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