Case dropped as veteran, 90, who drove wrong way on bypass surrenders licence

A CASE against a 90-year-old war veteran who was charged with driving the wrong way down the Edinburgh bypass has been dropped due to him surrendering his licence, a court heard today.

Chartres Baillie was accused of driving dangerously on the A720 Edinburgh city bypass.

The pensioner was said to have driven west on the eastbound carriageway at the Dreghorn junction on 28 March last year.

Baillie, from Dollar in Clackmananshire, denied the offence and his defence agent James Grant told Edinburgh Sheriff Court at a previous hearing that he would never drive again, had surrendered his licence to the DVLA and had no car.

Edinburgh Sheriff Court today accepted his licence has been surrendered and the case was deserted.

Speaking about the alleged incident outside court at a previous hearing Baillie said he had been blinded by bright sunlight after leaving a filling station.

He added a car had collided with the bonnet of his vehicle which was irreparable.

"I have not seen it since.

"I think that's the last of my driving days. I'll have to learn how to get the bus with time-tables etc," he said.

Baillie never sat a driving test, learning the skill when he was commissioned as a Captain in the Royal Engineers in 1939.

Rising to the rank of Major, he served in Burma with the Royal Bombay Sappers.

After demob in 1946, as a civil engineer he worked in Nigeria, the Middle East and the Carribean, before retiring in Dollar.