Man who caused friend’s death jailed for 18 months

By JOHN ROBERTSON
Published on 22/02/2013 12:14

A PORSCHE driver who caused his friend’s death in a crash on a country road has been jailed for 18 months.

Douglas Calder, 39, was told by a judge that he had been driving “much too fast” - more than 70mph - when he lost control of the car and it struck a drystone dyke, overturned several times and landed in a field.

William Webber, 36, of Tyrie, Aberdeenshire, was a passenger in the vehicle and died. His wife, Emma, had been expecting their first child and she miscarried after the crash.

“The impact on the Webber family has been devastating...(Emma) feels she has lost everything...this close-knit family has been torn apart,” said Lord Stewart at the High Court in Edinburgh.

Calder, an oil worker living in Andorra, the principality between France and Spain, had been accused of driving dangerously by driving his silver Porsche at excessive speed and losing control on an unclassified road near Strichen, Aberdeenshire, on 15 April 2011.

However, a jury convicted him of the lesser offence of causing death by careless driving.

Lord Stewart said he had decided that, even for the reduced charge, a jail term had to be imposed. He also banned Calder from driving for four and a half years.