A motorist who killed a cyclist while driving dangerously when unfit through drugs was jailed for six years and nine months. Scott Mackinnon's vehicle swerved onto the opposing carriageway on a straight section of road before colliding with the bike of Colin McCourt who was cycling home from work.
Mr McCourt, 40, was thrown from the bike and landed on a pavement and died at the scene on the A814 road, at Cardross, in Argyll and Bute. Mackinnon, 47, was later found to have five different drugs in his system, including morphine and Etizolam, sometimes known as street valium.
A judge told Mackinnon at the High Court in Edinburgh: "Custody is the only appropriate disposal, having regard to the serious nature of your offending." Judge Alison Stirling said in jailing him: "The reasons for this sentence include punishment, protection of the public and rehabilitation in a custodial setting."
The judge pointed out that Mackinnon, formerly of East King Street, Helensburgh, had numerous previous convictions for road traffic offences and two linked to drugs. She said that Mr McCourt, who was returning to Dumbarton from his job as a mechanical engineer at the Clyde naval base at Faslane, was "highly visible" on his bike at the time of the collision on November 10 in 2020.
Mackinnon's VW Golf partially mounted a footpath before striking Mr McCourt's bike. His vehicle also struck another car before the Golf overturned and landed on its roof. He got out of his car claiming he was "fine" and told a police officer: "My glasses are too loose, so I had bobbles holding them on. They must have fell off my face."
He was described as having "slurred" speech and being incoherent and appeared to fall asleep on the way to a police station. He was found to have "unquantified concentrations" of drugs in his bloodstream.
Mr McCourt suffered serious head and chest injuries in the fatal collision. Mackinnon earlier admitted causing his death by driving dangerously while unfit through drugs by going into the path of oncoming traffic and failing to take corrective or evasive action to avoid a collision.
Defence counsel Janice Green said it was accepted that the ingestion of drugs had "some part to play in the accused's standard of driving". She said Mackinnon recognised that his responses when bending down to pick up his glasses were likely to have been affected.
"The action of the accused in bending down to pick up the glasses caused him to swerve onto the opposing carriageway whereby he struck the kerb," she said.
She said he was genuinely remorseful for what had occurred. He previously had a long-standing drug problem but was determined to address addiction difficulties while in jail. Mackinnon was banned from driving for 12 years and months and was told he would have to sit a test before driving again.
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