Auckengill crash trial date fixed

[Nwicker60]

Special defence lodged in dangerous driving case to be heard at High Court

A CAITHNESS woman accused of causing a fatal road crash in the county has lodged a special defence of automatism.
It claims that 94-year-old Alice Ross was unconscious at the time she is alleged to have hit couple - due to a medical condition.
Ross, of The Flat, Westend, Lybster, is due to stand trial on August 5, at the High Court, Inverness. The charge alleges that she drove dangerously, on to the wrong side of a road, mounted a verge, drove along a pavement and hit a couple who were holidaying in Scotland to celebrate their first wedding anniversary.
The couple, Elaine Dunne, 30, of Domininion Road, Glenfield, Leicester and her husband Christopher died from their injuries sustained in the accident near Croft House, Auckengill, on September 21, 2011.
The special defence, lodged at a High Court hearing, in Edinburgh, this week, maintains that the medical condition Mrs Ross had was not self-induced and not foreseeable, which caused a fall in blood pressure and which led to “a profound faint”.