A driver who strayed over the centre line and caused a serious crash on the A86 was checking on his toddler son at the time, a court has heard.
Ewen Jamieson had been driving with his sleeping wife and child in the rear of his blue Audi when he thought he heard the child choking and turned to check.
But as he did so his car crossed into the opposite carriageway, colliding with an oncoming Citroen, and flipped both vehicles.
Jamieson, 32, had denied a charge of causing serious injury by dangerous driving at Inverness Sheriff Court and, after hearing the evidence, a jury took less than an hour to instead convict him of the lesser charge of careless driving.
In evidence led by fiscal depute Robert Weir, 31-year-old Ross Arthur, who was driving the oncoming Citroen, told the court that the June 5 2022 accident happened in a “flash”.
He said it was a matter of “milliseconds” between Jamieson’s Audi moving into his lane and the impact that flipped both vehicles onto their roofs.
He said: “There was an almighty bang. My airbag deployed, pushing me back in my seat.”
Mr Arthur said he felt a sense of “weightlessness” as the car travelled through the air, before coming to rest upside down.
‘I could smell petrol’
“There was a large amount of heat coming from the engine, I could smell petrol,” he said, adding: “My first thought was: ‘I have to leave this car or I’m going to burn to death’.”
Along with his front seat passenger, Mr Arthur managed to crawl free of the stricken vehicle, despite a shattered lower leg, broken pelvis and other injuries.
“I didn’t know my pelvis was broken, but I knew something was wrong. I was aware that I was bleeding very, very heavily from my leg, from my arm, from my head. That is when the panic started to set in.”
Mr Arthur was tended to at the scene, initially by off-duty medical staff, and was later airlifted to hospital.
He said the crash and subsequent treatment, including the surgical rebreaking of his leg in three places, have left him with “trauma” and PTSD-like symptoms including night terrors.
The former restaurant manager lost his job as a result of the incident and is still unable to take part in sports he used to enjoy.
He still suffers from pain and the injuries have affected his walking.
Jamieson, his wife and their 18-month-old child – who was strapped into a rear-facing Isofix car seat at the time of the impact – all escaped the crash without serious injury.
Taking to the witness box in his own defence, Jamieson explained that in the moments before the crash, which occurred near to the Moy Lodge junction, he had thought his young son was choking and had turned to check on him.
He said: “I was just driving along as normal and just in a split second, I thought my son was choking – my son was coughing and choking.
“I turned round to see him and that is all that I remember because of the crash.”
‘I’m always careful’
Under questioning from defence agent Graham Mann, Jamieson told the court: “I’m always careful with my son in the car, always careful. I barely go above fifty with him in the car.”
In his closing speech, Mr Mann told the jury: “There is no issue raised by Mr Jamieson that he did anything other than encroach on that lane and undeniably the consequences have been terrible.
“I’m not here asking you to acquit Mr Jamieson, what I am asking you to do is accept that it was an error that he made, a momentary lack of attention.”
In his closing speech, Mr Weir asked jurors to consider Jamieson’s actions before the crash: “Why not pull over? Why not stop? Why not at least slow down a bit?”
The jury took less than an hour to accept the defence position and return a unanimous verdict of guilty on the lesser charge of careless driving.
Sheriff Eilidh MacDonald told him: “Your driving indeed fell below that of a careful and considerate driver. You strayed into the opposing carriageway, whatever the reason for that, that is completely unacceptable.
“This was a significant error of judgement resulting in a significant accident and everyone involved in this accident was lucky to escape with their life.
“It is obvious that you have remorse for what happened and it is clear that you accepted your guilt for careless driving from an early stage.”
She banned Jamieson, of Glenlochy Road, Fort William, from the roads for 10 months and fined him £1040.
