A lorry driver who fell asleep at the wheel before a head-on collision which caused the death of a man on the A75 was yesterday jailed for five years.
Michael Wilson’s vehicle crossed the centre line of the road at Creetown in the early hours of July 7, 2018.
Alan Neill, 70, was fatally injured when the lorry hit his Ford
pick-up which was towing a trailer containing 12 dogs.
A judge told 28-year-old Wilson at the High Court in Edinburgh there was no appropriate alternative to a jail term.
Two of the dogs also died in the crash which happened as they were being transported to a grouse count, where dogs are used to flush out the birds to assess their numbers.
Lord Armstrong noted that the lorry driver had expressed “remorse and regret” but said it was a very serious matter.
He banned Wilson from driving for nine-and-a-half years and ordered that he resit a test before driving again. Another motorist, Glenda Harper, was also seriously hurt in the crash after her Suzuki was hit.
She had to be cut out of her car and was airlifted to hospital with multiple injuries.
Wilson, of Craigavon, in Northern Ireland, was earlier found guilty of causing the death of Mr Neill, a dog trainer, of Stewartstown, also in Northern Ireland, by driving dangerously.
The court heard that the recording function of the tachograph equipment on the lorry had been manipulated and that he had tail-gated another motorist while “showing signs of fatigue”.
A jury at his trial rejected a defence that the incident was caused by him reacting to something appearing on the roadway.
Wilson had claimed that he swerved to avoid it.
Defence counsel Allan Macleod said: “He is genuinely very sorry and remorseful that his actions caused the death of another human being and that is something he will have to live with for the rest of his life.”
Mr Macleod said that his client was assessed as posing a low risk of further offending and that he had told him he had no intention to drive HGV vehicles again.
