Pensioner convicted of causing Boxing Day crash that killed Scots community worker
Janette Henry, 67, was behind the wheel of her Range Rover when she ploughed into a family walking to a restaurant in Bearsden, East Dunbartonshire. Community worker Eleanor Ballantyne, 60, was killed and five relatives hurt on December 26 2019.
Eleanor's brother Brian Ballantyne, 59, had earlier told the trial how the family had got together for a traditional Boxing Day gathering at his home in Bearsden. The group were then walking on the pavement to a local restaurant when tragedy struck. He told jurors: "I remember watching the car and trying to process why it was not slowing down. I do not know if it was picking up pace, but it was not slowing down. I swung my wife around. The one thing I remember was the car being massive."Transport manager Charles said: "My wife was hysterical. I remember them shouting to get Eleanor, pointing out where she was. She was face down in a puddle - half on the pavement and half off.
Henry - who worked in human resources - told jurors she had been returning to Bearsden from Loch Lomond with relatives when the crash occurred. As she neared home, the OAP recalled slowing down on a narrow road to pass parked cars and her next memory was airbags deploying in her 4x4.She was said to have "screamed" before the collision, but the pensioner claimed to have no memory of that.
Medical experts who gave evidence could not rule out Henry suffered a sudden loss of consciousness at the wheel. In his closing speech, defence advocate Mr Ross argued that being so there was "no culpability or justification for punishment". "How is it that she is the only one who is prosecuted? The answer might be in the other cases the Crown seems to have accepted that the drivers were unconscious.
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