Seven years for speeding driver who killed woman

A PROVISIONAL driver has been jailed for more than seven years after killing a mother in a head-on collision.

Carney was sentenced to seven years and two months at the High Court in Glasgow. Picture: Contributed

Andrew Carney, 25, was driving at more than twice the speed limit before he lost control of his car on a bend and hit Jacqueline Lyon’s BMW on the wrong side of the road .

Carney had got into the car with his friend after a row with his girlfriend before speeding in the “atrocious” weather that day.

He overtook a number of concerned witnesses. After he crossed onto the wrong lane at a bend and hit 47-year-old Mrs Lyon head-on, a woman who went to her aid saw that she was dead at the scene.

Carney, from Aberdeen, pleaded guilty to causing the death of Mrs Lyon by dangerous driving on 27 August, 2012, on the Beach Esplanade in Aberdeen.

He also admitted driving without a licence or insurance.

At the High Court in Glasgow yesterday, judge Lord Turnbull sentenced Carney to seven years and two months and banned him from driving for ten years.

The judge told him: “Should any road-user choose to drive in a reckless or dangerous manner they must take responsibility for the consequences of that decision.”

Lord Turnbull said that an innocent woman “in the prime of her life” was killed and that it was also a tragedy for her family left behind. He added that an aggravating factor was the “atrocious weather conditions” .

The court heard that Carney had been sentenced at the High Court to 14 months detention for supplying drugs in 2008.

On the day of the incident, clerical assistant Mrs Lyon was driving alone along the Beach Esplanade, a 30mph road, at about 2pm in the heavy rain.

The court was told that at about the same time Carney was driving along the Beach Boulevard, which leads to the Beach Esplanade, in the opposite direction in a VW Golf with only a provisional licence and no insurance.

A witness, Lesley Nicolson, said she noticed Carney driving behind her. She claimed that he drove up to her and overtook her at excessive speed and that he drove so close to her she thought he might take her wing mirror off. Miss Nicolson pulled into the side of the road to telephone the police.

Witnesses described being “alarmed” at the speed Carney was driving at, and most of them heard the car before they saw it.

One couple overtaken by Carney said that “this was an accident waiting to happen” as they watched him approach the bend in the road.

The court heard that as the two cars approached the bend from opposite directions, Carney lost control and crossed on to the other side of the road, causing the fatal collision.

Police concluded that Carney was driving “well in excess” of the speed limit and overtook a number of cars in very wet conditions. Calculations indicated that before reaching the bend he had at one point been driving at approximately 53mph and at another point about 69mph.