Lies, Laws and the Bin Lorry Tragedy BBC Scotland Investigates

On 22nd December last year, a bin lorry careered out of control

in the centre of Glasgow.

For 19 seconds, it ploughed over roads and pavements,

reaching speeds of up to 25mph.

When it came to rest, six people were dead, and more than a dozen

suffered life-changing injuries.

Tonight, some of the bereaved families accuse the Scottish

justice system of failing them.

It wasn't, "Unfortunately, I'm sorry," but it was,

"Your mum's in the morgue."

The man had fell through every single safety net that had been put

in place from the top level, from the Crown, to doctors,

to Glasgow City Council.

These six people who died can't be gone.

They're not here today to speak for themselves.

Today, George Square bears no evidence

of the horror that was visited on this place nearly a year ago.

But the human scars run deep, both through the survivors

and the families of those who lost their lives.

As they await the report of the fatal accident inquiry

into the crash, some of those families have broken their

silence to question the Crown's approach to the investigation, and

to ask if they'll ever get justice.

Scenes of panic, captured on a mobile phone seconds

after the bin lorry left a trail of destruction along Queen Street

and George Square.

I know it's me because I see a handbag which was mine, and I see an

umbrella which was mine, and I know I could see my feet, so, actually,

to look at it, it's so surreal.

Saleswoman Elaine Morell suffered serious facial injuries and still

can't remember how she came to be caught in the bin lorry's path.

I instantly was knocked out, so I was unconscious for

between five and ten minutes.

I know that.

It was like a steel door that came crashing down on my head

and turned out all the lights and I just remember thinking,

"Oh, right, so that's it, that's the end."

We had been to the jewellers

and were on our way back to the train station.

Neither of us knew Glasgow very well so we retraced our footsteps

the way we had come.

Lucy Ewing was on a trip to the city with her mum, Gillian.

I think we'd come out past the National Galleries,

and then were walking up Queen Street towards the train station.

I had heard quite a loud bang but kind of after that I don't really

remember much other than being on the road and seeing the bin lorry

come up the street towards my mum.

And then obviously I saw it hit her.

A distraught Lucy was taken to a nearby cafe.

There was just sirens and flashing lights

and people everywhere.

Lucy frantically tried to get in touch with her family.

Lucy just literally said to me on the phone,

"I don't want to alarm you, but there's been

a serious accident in Glasgow and I think Mum might be dead."

A city was in shock.

As word spread, people were checking on the whereabouts

of their families and friends.

I got a phone call to say that

my mum hadn't been to pick the girls up.

My partner was in hysterics, saying the last time she'd had

any feedback from my mum or communication

from my mum was that she was leaving at half-past two to get the bus.

Adam Russell's mother, Jackie Morton, worked

in a tax office in the city centre.

As the hours passed, he took action.

I actually proceeded to call the number that came up

on the screen, then they took us through a whole rigmarole whereby it

was like, what your mum was wearing, what kind of clothes?

And it was actually,like, a surreal moment.

Then hours went past.

For some people, their loved ones wouldn't be coming home.

Hundreds of emergency workers were drafted

in to take control and start the investigation into what happened.

The crash had happened at lunchtime and families fearing

the worst could only wait.

It was ten o'clock in the evening before Adam Russell

received a phone call from police.

He said, "Just to let you know, Mr Russell, we've phoned

around all the hospitals and your mum's not there, so there's

a possibility she's at the Square."

And I said, "What do you mean, she's at the Square?"

She said, "There's a possibility she could be one of the victims

that's lying at George Square.

Would you like us to send a colleague over to speak with you?

They wouldn't be able to get there until about 12 o'clock at night.

Or would you rather just leave it until tomorrow?"

The Ewing sisters said they encountered similar police

insensitivity as they waited in Glasgow City Chambers.

He said, "We've just heard back from all the hospitals

and we can confirm that your mum is not on the list of people who are

in the hospital, therefore she must be one of the ones in the morgue."

That is how we were told.

That was pretty much the exact words.

In the morgue? In the morgue.

So it wasn't, "Unfortunately, I'm sorry, but..."

It was, "Your mum's in the morgue."

When we put this to Police Scotland, they said that

in such a major incident everyone is affected and working under extreme

pressure, and that they were sorry for any anguish caused and had

learned from the experience.

Six people lost their lives that day.

Jackie Morton, a tax worker and grandmother of two from Glasgow.

Gillian Ewing, from Edinburgh, who had been living in Cyprus.

18-year-old English literature student Erin McQuade.

Her grandparents, Lorraine and Jack Sweeney, who lived in Dumbarton.

And 29-year-old primary school teacher

Stephenie Tait, from Glasgow.

The driver of the bin lorry, just visible on the left

of the screen, was 58-year-old Harry Clarke, who had worked

for the council for four years.

He told an off-duty nurse who came to help him

that he hadn't blacked out, but that last thing he remembered

was sitting at the lights.

I felt so sorry for the bin lorry driver and his colleagues,

for those poor men to have witnessed such a devastating incident,

and I actually was worrying.

I worried that the bin lorry driver would be so distraught that...

that how could he cope with it?

The tragedy cast a shadow over any festivities as a city mourned.

Out of respect, the Christmas lights were switched off.

Strangers paid tribute.

But some of the bereaved families were already beginning to question

the sympathy for Harry Clarke.

They felt there was more to the crash than just

an unavoidable accident.

I actually couldn't sleep at night, the time it had happened.

So I actually took to Google Images just basically to see

if there was an image of my mum lying on that street.

Horrific.

When I was scrolling through the pictures,

I actually seen Harry Clarke climbing out of the bin lorry.

So then I started to ask questions with both the police and CID.

I said, "I've got this picture on my iPad."

I said, "I believe it to be the driver of the bin lorry."

They dismissed it and said there's no way that could've been the man.

This man was gravely ill in a hospital bed

and he has been since the accident.

The Ewing sisters also questioned

the circumstances surrounding the crash.

After we'd been told that mum had been killed, I had obviously lashed

out a little, but had obviously said something about the driver having

had a heart attack and the police instantly said, "I don't know where

you've heard that from, but that's not what happened."

Did he say what happened?

No, didn't say anything, all they said was they weren't able

to tell us anything but they could confirm that

the driver had not had a heart attack.

If Harry Clarke had a heart condition, he may not have

been safe to drive a heavy vehicle.

The question was, had a crime been committed?

Brian McConnachie is a former senior prosecutor.

He says thorough scrutiny of Harry Clarke's medical history

should have been key.

The issue, in my opinion, if you were prosecuting it, would be

to establish firstly that he had a medical condition, secondly that he

knew about that medical condition, and thirdly that he had effectively

covered up the fact of that medical condition in order

that it would not be disclosed to DVLA or to his employers, which

would presumably have prevented him driving on the day in question.

The investigation worked quickly.

At the end of February, nine weeks after what happened here,

the Crown made an announcement.

This news release from the Crown says that after a Crown Office

directed police inquiry, independent Crown Counsel decided

there was no evidence to suggest Harry Clarke had broken the law.

The Crown decided not to prosecute.

I think there was a general outpouring, I suppose, of grief at

the time because of the place where it happened, the circumstances that

occurred, and the time of the year, and that appears to have driven

the Crown Office to make decisions as quickly as they could.

Generally, these things tend to take quite a long time.

As an average, it would be probably something

in the region of about nine months between the time of the accident

and the police reporting the matter, and the matter actually being

proceeded to court, if appropriate.

A Fatal Accident Inquiry into the crash was quickly convened.

The purpose of an inquiry isn't to lay blame,

but to investigate and learn lessons.

The families had steeled themselves for what they regarded

as a necessary ordeal that might bring them some answers.

The family of school teacher Stephenie Tait

was represented by Ronnie Conway.

The one thing that the Taits have said to me consistently is that if

anything emerges from this tragedy, and the Fatal Accident Inquiry, it's

that no other family has to endure what they have endured and what

they know the other families are having to go through.

And it was clear from the outset that with

Harry Clarke, we're really not dealing with a criminal mastermind.

And the question for them was, how had such

a person managed to manipulate and game the system with such ease?

But some of those also acutely affected by the tragedy felt

ignored by the investigation.

Marie Weatherall had suffered multiple fractures in the crash

and spent four weeks in hospital.

I felt like a spectator in my own life, that all this

stuff's going on outside, nobody ever contacted me about anything.

I had one letter from the Procurator Fiscal's office saying

I might be called as a witness, I might not be called as a witness,

but they'd let me know.

Well, they never did, and everything that I ever found out subsequent to

the accident, I found out myself.

The inquiry was to take five weeks and involved more than

500 witness statements.

We've managed to acquire some of the medical and employment

records, hospital records and expert opinion used in court.

They run to thousands of pages.

Did the Crown know all of this when it decided not to prosecute?

Day by day, the inquiry laid bare failings involving the DVLA and its

system of medical self-reporting.

What you've got, in effect, is a system which relies exclusively

on the honesty and integrity of the applicant.

Where you're dealing with professional drivers,

whose livelihood is at stake, seems to me that the temptation to

conceal or not disclose medical incidents is simply colossal.

That is a system that is dysfunctional.

The attempt to get to the truth behind the tragedy

in George Square repeatedly returned to Harry Clarke's fitness

to be employed as a driver.

Some of the stuff that was coming out, it was just absolutely

unbelievable that this guy was still able to be driving anything,

never mind a 26-tonne bin lorry.

It just brought everything back and much, much worse,

because I just expected the truth at the Fatal Accident Inquiry,

that we all had expected to hear, and that isn't what happened.

It was the entire medical history that came out.

I just remember sitting that day and they were talking about episodes

of stress and dizziness and other vasovagal attacks dating

back from late 1970s.

If you've had that many episodes of fainting or dizziness, it beggars

belief, to be honest, that someone is able to still drive after.

Within Harry Clarke's long and complex medical records was

a blackout in 2010 when he was a driver with First Bus.

Harry Clarke told his doctor he blacked out in a canteen.

These are the guidelines given to doctors by the DVLA.

If it is a simple faint, they don't need to be notified.

Based on the canteen story he was told, Harry Clarke's doctor

determined it was a simple faint.

But during the inquiry, it was revealed

it may have happened on a bus.

If it emerged that Mr Clarke had slumped at the wheel of a bus,

there's really not much doubt that this was

a notifiable incident to the DVLA.

There's really not much doubt in terms of the DVLA protocols that

Mr Clarke would have lost his LGV licence for probably about a year.

He would not have been able to apply for a job with Glasgow City Council,

which he did later on in 2010.

He would not have been at the wheel

of a Glasgow City Council bin lorry in December 2014.

A bus inspector's report, taken at the time of the faint,

records it happened on a bus, not in a canteen.

The inquiry unearthed a paper trail of Harry Clarke's driving

declarations to the DVLA and his employers, revealing his dishonesty

about his fitness to drive.

He never disclosed that he had suffered a blackout or dizziness.

As the inquiry continued, it became clear that the only man

who could answer these allegations of lying was Harry Clarke.

But two of the families had raised the possibility

of pursuing a private prosecution.

This threat meant Harry Clarke was advised not to comment on anything

which might prove incriminating.

On the run-up to the day, me especially, I was very unsure as to

whether or not I was going to go.

I didn't really want to be in the same room as him

but then I also wanted to hear what he had to say.

It was one of the most harrowing days of our lives.

I mean, having to sit there and listen to him continually say,

"I don't wish to answer that.

I don't wish to answer that. I don't wish to answer that."

And then every time he did go to answer something,

his solicitors stand up and say, "Don't answer that."

It was extraordinary, you know, to hear him not say anything, and

then he gave his side of the story.

And, you know, it was just like he was a victim as well, really.

On August 28th, the Fatal Accident Inquiry ended.

It had heard 27 days of evidence, often suggesting

Harry Clarke was a man who had persistently and deliberately lied.

His own lawyer had described him as an ordinary man, with

the failings of an ordinary man.

We've been in touch with Harry Clarke.

For the first time, he revealed his feelings about that day,

in a letter through his lawyer.

Hours after the inquiry closed, the Lord Advocate took the unusual

decision to publicly reaffirm his decision not to prosecute.

He was interviewed by BBC Scotland's Reevel Alderson.

We have to take hard decisions and a cold analysis of the evidence.

We did it as quickly as we could without compromising thoroughness.

There is no evidence which has come out at the Fatal Accident Inquiry

which the Crown were not aware of when the major decisions were taken.

You are absolutely clear about that?

Nothing has come out that you didn't know about?

Well, what I did was, I checked with the inquiry team to confirm that.

That is my understanding and that was confirmed to me.

The fact that the Lord Advocate can still stand there and say,

"Sometimes you make difficult decisions,

but I know I made the right one," when they've got hundreds of people

out in the public screaming at them,

this guy really should have been convicted for something.

It just seems incredible that somehow or other, the legal system

made it possible for that person not to have to account

for himself, one way or another.

It's just, to me, that's morally wrong.

The Crown was clear - its February decision not to

prosecute was the right one.

But some of the families were questioning that and asking

if they would ever get justice.

Back in February, when it decided not to prosecute,

a news release from the Crown announced

David Green would be leading preparation

for the Fatal Accident Inquiry.

As head of the Scottish Fatalities Investigation Unit, he had been

involved in the Crown's response to the tragedy from an early stage.

Just over two weeks later, David Green held separate

face-to-face meetings with the families to explain

the independent Crown Counsel decision.

David Green proceeded to tell us that Mr Clarke had had

a one-off episode which occurred in April 2010, whereby he'd fainted

in a canteen, in a hot environment, and this was a one-off event.

He then proceeded to tell us that in 2012,

when he went for his DVLA renewal as part of his HGV renewal, he answered

"no" to, "Have you ever blacked out or lost or impaired consciousness?"

Well, he's obviously lied on that question,

because you've just said there he'd had a blackout in a canteen.

He then proceeded to tell me very abruptly, argumentative, that we

were comparing apples and pears.

The families say it was described to them as a simple faint in a canteen.

Such a faint, while standing up,

would not have been notifiable to the DVLA.

The Ewing sisters also questioned why this apparent lie

didn't warrant prosecution.

I had obviously said, "So, he lied."

David Green said, "No, he didn't tell the truth."

I said, "That's the exact same thing as lying."

And I was promptly told, "The thing you don't know about

Mr Clarke is he's a fat, uneducated man from the West of Scotland

and doesn't know any better."

Now, I'm not defending Harry Clarke, but that's not a very nice thing

to say about anybody, and it's not very professional either.

It's what we were told as to why he ticked "no"

on a form, instead of ticking "yes".

Because he's fat and uneducated.

It also suggests that there are different standards of criminality,

depending on how smart you are.

So because I've been to university, I wouldn't get away with ticking

a form wrong, because I would know better - but if I hadn't,

then I'm allowed, what, leeway on getting these things right?

That doesn't make any sense.

Adam Russell said it was some weeks later when his lawyers were sent

productions from the Crown that he learned of another version

of the blackout, that Harry Clarke had fainted at the wheel of a bus.

He's had a more or less mirror image of an event, whereby he's fainted

behind the wheel of a large vehicle.

This version of the blackout was, according to the Crown,

the true account of what happened.

Harry Clarke had fainted on a bus with passengers on it,

not in a canteen.

Under the DVLA guidance, a faint while sitting

and at the wheel is a notifiable incident.

Adam believed this made Harry Clarke's omissions to his employers

and the DVLA far more serious.

He said he had a growing suspicion the Crown had

missed the significance of Harry Clarke's faint on a bus when they

made the decision not to prosecute.

He made an official complaint.

The response was that Mr Green couldn't actually recall that he had

said that Mr Clarke had fainted in the canteen in a hot environment

and that he had actually stated that Mr Clarke had fainted whilst having

his lunch on a stationary bus.

And you, your father, your mother's sister, and two members

of your legal team heard otherwise? Yep.

We were specifically told he passed out in a canteen.

Nothing, no mention of on a bus.

The response to Adam Russell's complaint said David Green did not

"recall having made reference to an incident in a canteen",

although his colleague "thinks he may have done so".

And it's not just the families of Gillian Ewing and Jackie Morton,

but all the bereaved families are certain David Green made no mention

of a loss of consciousness on a bus in those individual March meetings.

They are all certain he told them it happened in a canteen.

This poses the question of why the Crown, at those meetings,

only offered the canteen version of events.

We asked David Green for an interview, but he declined.

The Crown Office said in a statement that David Green had

been "fully aware" that "the driver had a previous faint

on a bus" when he met the families.

It said David Green had extensive experience

and categorically denies using offensive terms.

It added that there were conflicting accounts from different sources

of the faint, but it had been clear to Crown Counsel that the primary

account was of the driver fainting in a stationary bus.

I feel very let down.

If, by law, he couldn't be charged,

I think there needs to be changes then made to the law.

If the Crown Office had decided to prosecute Harry Clarke,

what charges might have been considered?

The prosecution, if it was deemed appropriate, would be based upon the

fact that Mr Clarke had a knowledge of a medical condition from which he

suffered, and the real problem is not the fact that he knew he was

going to have an attack that day.

The real problem is, he did not know when he was going to have an attack.

And if you could establish that, then, in my opinion, that would be

certainly providing a case to answer for dangerous driving.

We asked the Lord Advocate for an interview.

He declined.

In a statement, the Crown Office reiterated their position...

I do think that the Crown Office rushed to a decision in this

particular case and I suspect if they had their life to live over

again and had heard all of the information that came out of the

Fatal Accident Inquiry, the decision in relation to Mr Clarke may well

have been something different.

Do you think they're regretting granting him immunity?

I suspect they're regretting the fact that they decided

not to consider prosecution.

The families we've spoken to believe that there are hundreds of

Harry Clarkes out there, taking risks and preserving their careers

with no enforced deterrents.

They question what justice has been achieved after

a criminal investigation and a long and painful Fatal Accident Inquiry.

But, above all, they hope something is done to tackle the human

and system failings that contributed to the bin lorry crash, in

the hope that no other family has to go through what they have endured.