A lorry driver has been found guilty of killing a nursery teacher after failing to notice a metal beam protruding from his lorry before it struck her.
John O’Donnell, 52, had pleaded not guilty to the more serious charge of killing Chloe Morrison by driving dangerously on October 25 2019.
The 26-year-old was walking with her mum when she suffered multiple fractures as an unsecured offloader leg on the lorry extended over the pavement and struck her.
She was hit on her back by the steel object and thrown 35 metres along the A82 at Kerrowdown, near Drumnadrochit.
The lorry also ran over her leg.
O’Donnell, of Crossover Road in Inverurie, denied responsibility for failing to observe that the stabilising outriggers of his low loader lorry were insecure.
But he was convicted by a jury’s majority at the High Court in Inverness of causing Ms Morrison’s death by careless driving after more than four hours of deliberating.
When the verdict was returned, both Ms Morrison’s family and O’Donnell’s relatives, who’d been present throughout the six-day trial, burst into tears.
The Morrisons were too distraught to comment immediately afterwards.
Lord Stuart deferred sentence until October 19 at Glasgow High Court and called for a background report.
Defence counsel Tony Graham asked that his client have his bail continued.
The judge told O’Donnell that had he been convicted of causing death by dangerous driving, he would not have granted bail and would have remanded him in custody.
O’Donnell was told he was disqualified from driving immediately.
The trial heard that O’Donnell had driven his lorry with a crane attached from Oldmeldrum to the north of Skye on October 24, 2019, stayed overnight and his load of fibre cable ducts was taken off by another grab crane.
The 52-year-old admitted he had dropped stabilizing legs the following day because of gales on October 25 although he was not trained to do so, before setting off on his return journey.
But he insisted he did not extend the outrigger beams.
However, CCTV showed the nearside outrigger’s yellow warning sign that it was unlocked when he filled up with diesel at a Broadford filling station.
He said he also visually checked the lorry on a rest break in a lay-by near Invermoriston and didn’t see anything untoward.
CCTV evidence
But the jury saw more CCTV which showed the outrigger moving as the lorry negotiated a tight bend coming out of Drumnadrochit.
Then a passenger in a car travelling in the opposite direction saw the outrigger swing out seconds before reaching the collision scene.
On the second day of evidence, jurors had heard from a former field service team leader from the lorry loader’s manufacturer, who carried out an inspection of the unit following the incident.
Douglas Potter, from the crane manufacturer Palfinger, told the court that the nearside stabiliser was “all working as it should be” when he inspected it following the incident.
Under cross-examination, however, he conceded that the unit was “certainly not maintained to a high standard”, a fact that was evidenced by the leg of the unit on the opposite side of the lorry, which had suffered a collapsed bearing making it hard to extend without effort.
Jury deliberations
At the High Court in Inverness, jurors could not reach a verdict on the first day of deliberations.
They were sent home for the day after spending Tuesday afternoon considering all the evidence presented to them during the six-day-long trial.
Jurors had asked the judge Lord Stuart for more time to agree on a verdict.
On the second day of deliberations, the jury returned a verdict of guilty to the lesser charge of causing death by careless driving.
O’Donnell will be sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow on October 19.
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