An England fan who is serving a 12 year jail term for mowing a mourner down in a murder bid was today cleared of murdering the victim who has since died.
Michael Scott was driving a Skoda Octavia car when it collided with Graeme Hardie on a road outside a bar in Aberdeen, leaving him badly injured.
Scott, 37, had been asked to leave two pubs following his "obnoxious" behaviour as an England v Croatia World Cup match was being screened on television.
Paramedics who were called out to the injured man found him lying on his back in Old Meldrum Road, Bucksburn, unconscious and unresponsive.
Hardie was found to have suffered a traumatic head injury and fractures in the collision after he was hit by the car and underwent surgery.
Scott was originally charged with attempting to murder Mr Hardie and was convicted of the offence in 2019 and sentenced to 12 years.
The judge who jailed him, Lord Uist, told him: "You were convicted by the jury of the attempted murder of Graeme Hardie, a man with whom you had an argument in a pub on the occasion of his late brother's funeral reception."
"You deliberately drove your car at him in order to cause him injury and you did cause the most appalling injuries which have effectively ruined his life."
The judge told Scott: "You have shown no remorse for what you did to him.
"A conviction for attempted murder particularly where, as here, the crime resulted in catastrophic injury must attract a lengthy sentence."
Hardie, 59, was later transferred to a care facility in England but died in 2020.
The Crown subsequently took the decision to prosecute Scott for his murder, which he denied.
It was alleged that on July 11 in 2018 at Old Meldrum Road he assaulted and murdered Hardie and drove a car at him, striking him with the vehicle, causing him to be thrown into the air and striking his head and body on the car and ground resulting in him being so severely injured that he died on March 5 2020 at Eastbourne District General Hospital, in Sussex.
In the new prosecution brought against Scott it was agreed that the injuries sustained by Mr Hardie were both severe and life threatening.
The High Court in Edinburgh heard that the cause of his death was established as bronchopneumonia as a complication of a traumatic brain injury due to a road traffic collision in which he was a pedestrian.
Defence counsel Brian McConnachie QC asked jurors to acquit his client on the murder charge which carries a life sentence if convicted.
He said: "So far as the collision is concerned Mr Scott tells you it is Mr Hardie who comes into collision with the car, if you like."
He said there was a dent and mark on the vehicle which was consistent with a foot having come into contact with it.
Scott claimed that he panicked after the incident and drove off but crashed his car at the nearby A497 road and mounted a central reservation. He was found to be over the limit in a roadside breath test.
Advocate depute Victoria Dow said that when eyewitness evidence was considered together it painted "a clear picture" that Scott drove right at Hardie and did not try to avoid him.
The court heard that before the collision Scott had been asked to leave the Spider's Web bar, in Dyce, and then the Staging Post, in Bucksburn, where Hardie.
Scott Reid, 45, the manager of the Spider's Web, said: "He just started to antagonise the customers that were there. I made the decision to ask him to leave.
"I think he accused either myself or other people of being racist because he came from England."
Allan Beattie, 66, who was the manager at the Staging Post, said that on the day of the incident there was a wake on for Mr Hardie's brother David.
Scott had become louder and louder in the premises and was asked to leave.
Scott was found not guilty of the murder of Hardie by a majority verdict.
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