A bus driver who knocked over and killed an elderly football supporter who was making his way home from watching a match has been banned from the road.
Alan Boyd, 35, drove his single decker McGills bus into the opposite carriageway and struck pensioner Allan Moir at Haymarket in Edinburgh on February 4 last year.
The newly-qualified driver crossed into a designated tram lane and collided with the 79-year-old who fell to the ground and suffered ‘head trauma with a heavily bleeding wound to the rear of his skull’.
Mr Moir, a father-of-four and a grandfather-of-five, was heading home after attending the Hearts versus Dundee United Scottish Premiership match at Tynecastle Park where he held a season ticket.
Edinburgh Sheriff Court was told the novice bus driver was in control of the single decker bus travelling from Edinburgh to Falkirk for only the second time on his own following his training.
The court heard last month that he admitted driving without due care and attention and knocking Mr Moir to the ground causing him to be so severely injured he died.
He returned to the dock for sentencing on Friday (29.11) where Sheriff Ian Anderson spared him a custodial sentence and instead issued a community payback order.
Boyd, of Westfield, Cumbernauld, was placed on a supervision order for six months and ordered to carry out 240 hours of unpaid work.
He was also banned from driving for 24 months and must pass the extended test before he’s allowed to drive again.
Previously fiscal depute Anna Robertson told the court the elderly victim had left Tynecastle Park and was due to be picked up by his taxi driver son.
Ms Robertson said the McGill’s Buses single decker driven by Boyd was travelling along the city’s Atholl Place and was approaching the junction with Morrison Street at around 5.35pm.
The court heard ‘for reasons unknown it began to straddle the west and east bound tram lanes before fully moving into the eastbound tramway prior to the Grosvenor Street junction’.
The fiscal said the road ‘is clearly signed ‘tram only’ with paint on the roadway’ and ‘the deceased was attempting to cross the carriageway from the south to north within the confines of the pedestrian crossing’.
Ms Robertson added Mr Moir had stopped on the central island and checked to the left before stepping out into the road where he was ‘struck by the bus’.
She said: ‘Impact occurred at 5.36pm with a speed of 16mph [taken] from on-board footage from the bus.
‘The deceased suffered head trauma with a heavily bleeding wound to the rear of his skull and a broken left wrist.’
The court was told witnesses including off duty medical practitioners rushed to the aid of Mr Moir and contacted the emergency services.
Mr Moir, who lived in the Stockbridge area of the capital, was placed into the back of an ambulance but was declared dead at 6.35pm.
The bus driver provided a negative drug wipe and alcohol breath test to the police at the scene and later successfully passed an eye test.
During a police interview Boyd told officers: ‘That was my second day. I didn’t see him at all, I didn’t see him on the island.’
Following Mr Moir’s death a relative posted online that he had been a lifelong season ticket holder and had attending Hearts matches since 1952.