A DRINK driver was jailed for six years today after killing a teenage passenger when he crashed into a tree.
A court heard that Ross McIntyre had been waging a battle with drink and had sought help from Alcoholics Anonymous.
But he had succumbed to drink on eight or nine occasions including before the fatal incident.
Defence counsel Louise Arrol told
the High Court in Edinburgh: "It was a massive error of judgement in driving while under the influence of alcohol."
Father-of-two McIntyre, aged 26, was earlier convicted of causing the death of 19-year-old Ross Watson by driving dangerously, at excessive speed and while under the influence of drink.
He failed to negotiate a junction, left the road, mounted an embankment and struck a tree, embedding the car in the trunk, at the A72 Skirling road at its junction with the A702 Edinburgh road on January 7 last year.
Judge Lord Wheatley: "No sentence of the court can ever properly compensate those who have suffered grief from what happened. At the end of the day, however, I have to proceed on the basis that you needlessly caused the death of another person by driving with nearly three times the permitted level of alcohol in your system."
The judge said he accepted McIntyre was "genuinely remorseful" but a custodial sentence of "some considerable length" had to be imposed.
He also banned McIntyre, of Sutherland Way, Livingston, from driving for seven years and ordered he re-sit a test.
After the crash Mr Watson, of Harburn Avenue, Livingston, was pronounced dead at the scene. HGV driver McIntyre, who suffered a broken neck, was cut from the wreckage and taken to hospital.
A police witness who spoke to McIntyre in hospital said he could not remember anything about it. He just remembered seeing the junction and panicking.
McIntyre was estimated to have been travelling at speeds between 50 and 70 mph in the BMW 3-series when he lost control.
Miss Arrol said McIntyre and Mr Watson had been at a party and as it was coming to a close a decision was taken to drive to Innerleithen, in Peebleshire. They then decided to return home to Livingston but McIntyre got lost.
She said: "He recognises the loss suffered by Mr Watson's family and his concern has always been for the deceased and the fact his family have been deprived of a son and a brother."
The defence counsel said McIntyre had previously been in the RAF and found that part of the culture was heavy drinking at weekends.
She said he had continued to weekend binge drink after leaving the air force.
"He recognised this was becoming a problem some four years ago and he sought assistance from AA, but what he was unable to do was to completely abstain from alcohol," said Miss Arrol.
She said it was not his intention to drink on the evening when he went out before the fatal crash and that was why he took the car.
The defence counsel said he has stopped drinking since the fatal crash in January last year and has been regularly attending AA.
Miss Arrol said that following earlier court proceedings McIntyre had approached Mr Watson's parents because he felt he had to personally apologise to them.
The full article contains 560 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
