Sentenced to a life in limbo
Case rekindles painful memories for gran
A Stirling family’s pain over the loss of a beloved son and grandson killed in a road accident remains acute almost eight years on.
Andrew McLean was 22 when the car he was driving was hit by another which was travelling on the wrong side of the road.
The Frenchman driving the car which hit Andrew’s vehicle was sentenced to 200 hours’ community service and given an 18-month driving ban.
However, Andrew’s family have no way of knowing whether the French national served the sentence and ban which has added to the grief they still feel about his loss.
Painful memories of the case were rekindled for the family by a court story which appeared in the issue of the Observer of July 20, 2018.
It told how a motorist who lives in France was driving on the wrong side of the A81 near Gartmore last August when he was involved in a collision which put three Scots in hospital, one with lifethreatening injuries.
Speaking at Falkirk Sheriff Court, Sheriff John Munday told Ludovic Anselmi, the driver in the Gartmore incident, that there was no statutory basis for a community-based disposal to be enforced or supervised in France – as the UK had not ratified “a framework decision”.
Anselmi admitted causing serious injury by dangerous driving and was fined £3000 and disqualified from driving for 27 months.
Sheriff Munday said the fine could be enforced but the driving ban would only be effective in the UK and “what the French authorities do as far as that’s concerned is obviously a matter entirely for them”.
Andrew’s grandmother Elizabeth Billet who lives with Andrew’s dad John McLean in De Moray Court told the Observer this week: “This latest case is almost a carbon copy of the one involving the man in the crash which killed Andrew.
“He was a French national working as a teacher in the south of Ireland.
“Eight years on drivers from other countries are causing serious injuries and fatalities and we have no way of knowing if they are serving the sentences passed by courts in this country.
“I’d like to see stricter penalties imposed for drivers, whatever their nationality, if they cause life-changing injuries or fatalities on our roads.
“But I’m very concerned about the enforcement of sentences of nonUK nationals as it stands. You have to ask: why take an accused driver to court if there is no way of enforcing the sentence when they go back to their home country?
“There has to be some way of enforcing such sentences. Nobody knows what happens after the accused leaves the court. You are in the dark.
“Andrew’s death has been devastating for our family, but we’re not the only family suffering such a loss.
“We have been left in limbo by the system. We want some kind of justice, some kind of closure.” Andrew – a former pupil of Braehead Primary School and Bannockburn High School – had been an apprentice panel beater at a garage in Thankerton near Biggar in Lanarkshire and engaged to be married.
He had been returning to his home from Peebles Farmers Market in September, 2010, when the head-on collision occurred on the A72 at Skirling.
Since her grandson’s death Elizabeth has campaigned on road safety and raised funds for road safety charity Brake.
Former Stirling MP Anne McGuire had raised the matter on the floor of the House of Commons in 2012 during a debate on dangerous driving.
Stirling MP Stephen Kerr said this week: “There should be arrangements in place that allow an appropriate sentence to be applied for anyone convicted of these offences and I have asked the Government for full details of the current situation.
“There is also a debate needed as to whether the existing penalties are adequate.
“Being in charge of motorised vehicle is huge responsibility given the terrible consequences that often result from drivers not taking that responsibility seriously.”
I would like to see stricter penalties imposed for drivers , whatever their nationality