ENGINE-DRIVER FOUND GUILTY. '

Evening Post, Volume LXXIII, Issue 118, 20 May 1907, Page 4

ENGINE-DRIVER FOUND GUILTY.

: - SENTENCED -TO JTVE MONTHS' ' • ' T^IPRISOXMEXT. George Gajirlay, tho driver of the train which, on 28th December, collided with a ■tandmg train at Elliott Jucetior., Arbroath, Scotland, killing a number of people, wa3 'in the High Court of Jiutieiary at Edinburgh found guilty of causing tho deaths of twenty-two persons who las', .- their lives through the collision., Tho jury recommended him to' leniency, tnd ho w.is Eentenced by the Lord Justice Clerk to iivo months' imprisonment. Gourlay gavo evidengs on his own behal f . t Ho 'said ho wa3 sixty yi>ar3 of ago and had forty-soven years' service. Ho described tho delays that followed on Iho cnovstorr.i on the day of tho acrident. At the Arbroath south cabin, after ho had got :nrtructiona to go south, Bsattic, tho signalman, told him he was to go "on his own hook." The gale wa3 veryJlad, and bits of coal were baicg blown off tho tendor. Ho could Bee none of tho objects of the wayside, . and depended on fog cignals to tell him if ,• there was anything lite danger ahead. Tho first signal ho caw was tho home signal, ■ and it was "off." He never exceeded seventeen or eighteen milop per hour. He knew tßat he wa^ approaching Elliott Junction, end when ho saw the enow becoming more excessive and blinding him ho Blackened his speed and went cautiously. .mo Lord Justice Clerk, in passing sentence, said: "George Gourlay, every one must sympathise with tho recommendations of the jury. They have held that yon failed in ypur duty on the occasion in , qucstionl. It is quito a case in which to give tho utmost effect I can to tho rocom- - mendation, and I oh4Jl limit the sentenco to tho enudlest I haVo a right to pronounco in to serious a. CMCr-namcly, five months' imprisonment."