A motorist accused of causing the death of her partner and another woman in a horrific crash walked free from court yesterday – after the poor state of a road was blamed for the tragedy.
Vincent Kennedy and widow Mary Gillies died in the smash on the A85 just outside the Argyll village of Connel.
Mother-of-three Veronica MacKenzie went on trial at Oban Sheriff Court yesterday accused of causing their deaths by careless driving.
Her Vauxhall Vectra went out of control and skidded before colliding with the Honda CRV Fort William 74-year-old Mrs Gillies was a passenger in.
But the case against the 32-year-old collapsed after witnesses – including police officers – said the road surface was slippery at the time of the summer accident.
Constable Iain Young told the court he had to grab on to his patrol car to stop himself falling over when he stepped out on to the wet carriageway.
Sheriff Ruth Anderson agreed with advocate Steve Love, and formally found MacKenzie not guilty.
She left the dock smiling broadly, but afterwards refused to comment or say whether she would take legal action against Transport Scotland.
Mr Love claimed in court that the roads agency knew of the sub-standard nature of the surface before the crash, but did nothing about it.
He said he had asked chartered civil engineer Peter Dickson – also a member of the Institute of Traffic Investigators – to visit the crash scene.
During his “no case to answer” plea Mr Love referred to a report prepared by the investigator, and said Mr Dickson discovered the road surface was uneven, there was “a low texture depth” and a “severe deficiency in skid resistance”.
He added that in the three years leading up to the tragic crash on August 1, 2013, Transport Scotland annually checked the road condition at the accident scene and found skid resistance “very low”.
Mr Love added: “Despite this no work was carried out on the road.”
Sheriff Anderson and the jury heard from a 15-year-old boy who was a passenger in the Vectra.
He said that as the car rounded a left hand bend heading for Oban, it skidded on the wet road surface.
Ms MacKenzie, of 27 Hazeldean Crescent, Oban, attempted to correct the skid but the front of the Vauxhall crossed the white line in the middle of the road and hit the Honda.
Several witnesses gave evidence that the road was slippery.
Crash investigator Constable David Spier agreed that the “slipperiness increases with time”.
Constable Stuart Campbell, 40, said he arrived at the scene and moved his foot back and forward on the road surface.
He added: “It was not contaminated by diesel or anything else but was still slippy.”
Local van driver Leslie Butler, 44, said he travelled the route regularly and “sometimes” found the accident spot slippy.
He was backed up by Adele Duncan, 32, from Oban, who said that earlier on the day of the crash she drove the route and at the stretch where the crash happened her car skidded towards the opposite side of the road.
After the accident, Ms MacKenzie, who operated a mobile tanning business in Oban, was flown by helicopter to the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow.
She had suffered head injuries and spent two weeks in a coma and a further fortnight in hospital.
She had no recollection of the accident which killed her 32-year-old partner Mr Kennedy, who served in Afghanistan with the Territorial Army.
Her three children in the back seat escaped with minor injuries.