A chauffeur for VIPs staying at Edinburgh’s top hotels crashed into a couple crossing the road in his Mercedes. Roderick Rowan, 57, struck the pair next to a zebra crossing, throwing the woman onto the bonnet and leaving her seriously injured.
Rowan, whose job is ferrying diplomats and high-profile figures around the capital, told how he failed to see them. He admitted a charge of careless driving while being represented by Gordon Jackson KC, the lawyer who successfully defended Alex Salmond at his 2020 sex assault trial.
Rowan pled guilty at the city’s sheriff court on Tuesday to colliding with pedestrians Ashley Anderson and Martins Komarovskis on Pennywell Road. Fiscal depute Cheryl Porter said the collision took place at around 3.10pm on a straight section of the northbound road with clear visibility.
Ms Porter said: “The couple walked from Muirhouse passing the shops on Pennywell Road and making to cross the roadway.” The court heard Rowan was driving in his silver Mercedes and “failed to see” Ashley and Martins as they walked side by side.
Martin was hit first, the prosecutor said, and fell back onto the central reservation. Ashley was lifted onto the car’s bonnet, striking the windscreen before falling off.
Ms Porter said Ashley was taken by ambulance to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary after suffering a number of fractures, including a broken leg, while Martins had injuries to his wrist and calf.
The court was told Ashley discharged herself from hospital on the same day “against medical advice”. Mr Jackson said the victims had been walking along the grass verge before making a “sharp turn” and were not on the zebra crossing at the time of the impact.
He said his client’s car had a “gadget” on board which applies the brakes if someone is in front of it and this never happened, suggesting the victims appeared very suddenly.
Mr Jackson said Rowan was a self-employed chauffeur who worked at a “high level”, transporting “high value” hotel patrons such as diplomats and visiting Saudis.
The lawyer described Rowan as a “highly competent chauffeur” with a clean driving licence whose “concentration very momentarily must have gone”. Sheriff Kenneth Maciver said Rowan, of the city’s Greendykes area, had “stopped as quickly as possible” during the incident on October 7, 2020.
But the sheriff added it had been a “wide open road” with “good visibility” and Ashley suffered “significant injury”.
Sheriff Maciver said: “We have to assume there was a lapse of concentration which can happen to all drivers at some time.” He endorsed Rowan’s license with six penalty points and fined him £420.
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