SENTENCING STATEMENTS

On sentencing Sheriff Auchincloss said:

“David Keegan you were found guilty of causing serious injury by driving dangerously on the Cowgate in Edinburgh on 2 November 2023.

Serious injury was caused to Anne Gannon and Fionnghal Begbie.  Injury was also caused to Patrick Gorman.  Anne Gannon and Patrick Gorman are a married couple who were on holiday in Edinburgh with their two young children.  They were walking on the Cowgate, going towards the Grassmarket on the north side of the road.  Anne Gannon fell on the wet pavement at the entrance to the arch of George IV Bridge. She was hurt and people came to help.  Some who were also on holiday in the city, and Fionnghal Begbie, a local, who had been walking her dog. Fionnghal Begbie is a first aider.  She sat down beside Anne Gannon who was now also sat up.  An ambulance was called.

Some fifteen minutes later you were seen driving your car in the Grassmarket towards the Cowgate.  You were veering towards the left and then back again. You negotiated the roundabout at the bottom of Candlemaker Row and entered the Cowgate.  You mounted the kerb on your nearside outside the Virgin Hotel and continued along with part of your car remaining on the pavement.  An experienced Road Traffic Policing Sergeant described this as a manoeuvre that required substantial concentration to keep a car in that position without striking the walls on the left.

As you approached Anne Gannon and those helping her you did not slow down. Two witnesses had been alerting traffic to her presence using the torches on their phones.  You did not respond to them.  Fionnghal Begbie jumped onto the bonnet of your car and shouted at you to stop, but you did not.

You struck Fionnghal Begbie and Patrick Gorman. Your ran over Anne Gannon with the front offside of your car. Your car then veered to the right, across the carriageway dragging Anne Gannon along, still under your car. It appears you did not brake.  Your car struck a stationary black cab stopped on the south side of the Cowgate at the rear of this very building.  A sunken drain cover released Anne Gannon from being caught in the collision.

The front and rear wheels of your car ran over Patrick Gorman’s leg.  He was left with a permanent scar on his knee.  There was significant bruising and cartilage damage.  He still lives with pain and requires ongoing physiotherapy.  He had been incapacitated on the night of 2 November 2023. As he saw his wife being dragged away under your car he believed he had lost her.  Their two young children had been standing near their mother when the collision happened.  They were hysterical.  It is easy to imagine they will have been deeply affected by what they saw.

Fionnghal Begbie and Anne Gannon were seriously injured.  Fionnghal Begbie was left with a serious fracture of her upper shinbone affecting the knee joint surface. Part broke off.  She required surgery to have a plate inserted. The nerve to the bottom of that leg was severed.  She cannot feel her leg from the knee down.  It becomes heavy at work and makes her tired.  If something strikes her leg, she cannot feel it.

Anne Gannon suffered twelve broken ribs, two spinal fractures, a broken left collarbone, broken left shoulder blade, a bruised left lung, serious bruising of her left arm and radial nerve damage to her dominant left hand.  She was also left with cuts to her left hand, right knee and ankle as well as three friction wounds to her buttocks. Those friction wounds required six months of treatment before they permanently closed.  The wounds were dressed daily while she was in hospital, reducing to three times when twice per week.  But she could not sit during this time, which reduced her quality of life with her family.

She had to remain in hospital in Edinburgh when her family returned to their home before being moved to a hospital there.  She went through nine months of physiotherapy.  She still doesn’t have full movement in her left shoulder and some of her wounds and injuries still cause discomfort.  Her injuries go beyond the physical.  She was left afraid to fall asleep in case she did not wake up.  She required counselling for months to deal with the flashbacks that have still not fully abated. She and her family had to spend hundreds of pounds on equipment to help with her recovery.  Your dangerous driving has had a devastating impact on that family.

The next morning you told the police, during interview under caution, that you had suffered a sneezing fit while driving on the Cowgate.  At trial your position was that you had suffered an epileptic fit.  A consultant neurologist gave evidence about your history of blackouts before November 2023, including when you were riding a motorcycle.  You confirmed them in evidence.  Medical intervention had not resolved the blackouts, and you knew that.

By returning a guilty verdict the jury either rejected your position that you had suffered an epileptic fit outright or decided, if you had, you ought to have foreseen the risk that you would blackout when driving. By choosing to drive it was dangerous, by doing so in the face of obvious and material dangers which ought to have been observed, appreciated and guarded against.

I have the benefit of a Justice Social Work Report and Restriction of Liberty Order Assessment.  You have two previous convictions, the more serious of which is non-analogous.  I attach little weight to them when deciding on the appropriate disposal in this case.  You are now fifty-five, single and unemployed.  You had significant challenges in your early life, but these do not seem connected to this offending.  You have what is described in the Justice Social Work Report as a long and difficult medical history, including struggles with your mental health.  There is no focus for supervision under a Community Payback Order, given your health you are not assessed as suitable for unpaid work. You are assessed as suitable for a Restriction of Liberty Order.

To the author of the Justice Social Work Report you have expressed regret for your actions and stated you did not intend to harm people.  You describe the events as an awful accident.  By their verdict the jury made clear this was not an accident. You are fully responsible for what happened.

Using the possibility that the jury decision was based on your failure to take into account your history of blackouts before driving I assess your culpability in relation to the offence as being moderate.  Regarding harm caused you seriously injured two people. Both are still living with the consequences of the injuries you are responsible for.  In my view considering the physical and psychological injury, not only to them but to Anne Gannon’s family, the harm caused lies within the high range.  This places the offence in the significant level of seriousness, but not at the highest point of seriousness assuming, as I have said, that the jury decision was you had driven knowing you had a history of blackouts, rather than ruling out an epileptic fit completely.

Given this significant level of seriousness, a Restriction of Liberty Order or a fine, and I note that you are still paying an earlier fine, the only two community-based disposals assessed as suitable in the Justice Social Work are not appropriate.  The only appropriate way of dealing with you is a custodial sentence.

I have taken full account of the information in the Justice Social Work Report, your very limited record of previous convictions and all that has properly been said by your solicitor-advocate Mr McFarlane.  I attach particular weight to the fact that this will be your first experience of custody in selecting a term that is no more severe than it needs to be to fulfil its purposes of your punishment and the protection of the public.  The sentence is eighteen months in custody from today.

In addition you fall to be disqualified from holding or obtaining a driving licence. That will be for a period of six years, and you are ordered to sit and pass the extended test of competency to drive before you can hold a driving licence again.”

23 March 2026