A careless driver who caused a crash that killed the mother of a man killed in a shooting on Skye has been spared jail.
Colin Grant’s hire car crossed the centre line of the A87 between Balmacara and Kyle of Lochalsh, colliding head-on with the vehicle Valerie MacKinnon, 73, was travelling in on August 22 2021.
Mrs MacKinnon – mother of John MacKinnon, who was allegedly murdered the following year – was airlifted from Broadford Hospital to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, where she later succumbed to her injuries.
Clock repairer Grant appeared for sentencing at Inverness Sheriff Court having admitted causing death by careless driving at a hearing in January of this year.
The 60-year-old, from Norwich, also pled guilty to charges that he failed to notify authorities of a disability – epileptic seizures – and that he drove after that failure to notify.
The court was told that had he followed the rules and notified the authorities about his medical condition he might not have been driving that day and Mrs MacKinnon would still be alive.
The earlier hearing had heard how Grant, of Manor Farm Close, Drayton, and his wife had picked up a Honda Jazz hire car in Aberdeen and planned to tour the north of Scotland.
On August 22 2021 the couple had visited Eilean Donan castle and were heading on to Skye, with Grant behind the wheel.
The court was told a convoy of motorcycles was carrying out overtaking manoeuvres on Grant’s vehicle in the moments before the crash.
One biker described how Grant’s car “almost closed the door on” his overtaking line as it strayed across the white line into the path of the oncoming car.
Grant’s wife told police she had been “in and out of daydreams” before she “suddenly became aware that the car was straying into the opposing carriageway”.
She shouted at her husband to alert him, but it was “too late for her to pull the steering wheel to the left” to try to avert the collision.
Following the crash a witness reported hearing Grant’s wife saying: “He shouldn’t have been driving.”
Crash victim died three weeks later
The car Valerie MacKinnon was travelling in was being driven by her 17-year-old grandson, who was driving on a provisional licence as he prepared for his upcoming driving test.
One of her daughters was also present in the vehicle.
In the aftermath of the crash, Mrs MacKinnon was taken to Broadford Community Hospital, but as her condition deteriorated she was transferred by helimed to a high dependency unit in Glasgow with fractures and internal injuries.
She died on September 15 – three weeks after the crash – with the cause of death being recorded as bronco pneumonia due to chest injuries caused by the collision.
At the sentencing hearing Mark Moir KC, for Grant, reminded the court of the motorcycles that had “cut in” in front of Grant in the moments before impact.
He said: “He fully accepts his concentration was not fully focussed on the oncoming traffic in those few seconds and that his failure in that regard led to the accident.”
‘He should not have been driving at that time’
He told Sheriff Sara Matheson: “Nothing he can say or do can ease the family’s suffering. He continues to express his deep regret for his actions on that day.
“He lives it every day and feels so bad for everyone involved – the victim, the family affected. He said he thinks about it all the time.”
The court heard that despite failing to notify the DVLA of previous epileptic seizures, it was concluded that Grant had not suffered from a medical episode at the time of the crash.
Mr Moir told the court: “He accepts that he should not have been driving at that time because of his medical condition.”
But Sheriff Matheson told Grant: “But for those failures you may not have been driving at all on the day in question, and thus Mrs MacKinnon’s life may not have been so tragically lost.
“You allowed your vehicle to cross over the white line.
”It collided head-on with the car in which Mrs MacKinnon was a passenger.”
The sheriff told the court that she wished to make it plain that no fault for the accident lay with Mrs MacKinnon’s grandson.
‘Valerie MacKinnon was the heart and anchor of her family’
She added: “Nothing I can say or do, no sentence I can pass, can reflect the tragic loss of Mrs MacKinnon.
“Valerie MacKinnon was the heart and anchor of her family – a loving and much loved individual”
”When you finish the sentence I impose, you will be able to move on with your life, while the loss suffered by Mrs MacKinnon’s family will endure.”
She placed Grant, a first offender with a clean driving licence, on a community payback order with 200 hours of unpaid work in the community.
She also banned him from the roads for two years, after which he would have to sit and pass an extended test if he wished to drive again.
Mrs MacKinnon was initially survived by her three children, John, Ann and Christine, as well as her grandchildren.
Tragically John, who reportedly spent weeks by his mother’s bedside following the crash, was killed following an alleged shooting attack on the Isle of Skye on August 10 of the following year.
Finlay MacDonald, 39, is due to stand trial at the High Court in Glasgow in May, charged with murdering John and attempting to murder three others.
Mrs MacKinnon’s family, who were present in court for the hearing, declined to comment on the sentencing.
