Family win loch crash damages

The accident happened on the banks of Loch Lomond

A widow and her children have been awarded £250,000 damages after her husband died when his car plunged into Loch Lomond at a notorious accident blackspot.

A judge ruled that temporary traffic lights should have been installed which would have "virtually removed the possibility of such an accident occurring at all".

Weeks after John Sargent was killed traffic lights were set up at the site, although a senior roads engineer for the Scottish Executive said they were not put up because of the fatal accident.

I am entirely satisfied that the possibility of this kind of accident occurring was reasonably foreseeable in the circumstances

Lord Clarke

Mr Sargent's car went into the loch through a gap in a wall as he tried to take avoiding action because he was faced with a tourist bus coming towards him on the wrong side of the road.

The self-employed builder and his wife Patricia were returning south from a Highland holiday at Plockton with another couple in October 1988 when the accident happened.

Mr Sargent, 45, from Bletchley, near Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire, was posthumously honoured by the Royal Humane Society for bravery as he concentrated on freeing his wife as the car sank.

Donald Dewar denied liability

His wife and children, Keith, Jacqueline and Adrian, sued Scotland's First Minister Donald Dewar, as responsible for the roads authority, in an action at the Court of Session.

Lord Clarke said the car came off the road at a gap between a stone wall and a barrier before toppling down a sheer 20 feet drop.

The judge said: "I am entirely satisfied that the possibility of this kind of accident occurring was reasonably foreseeable in the circumstances."

'Spanish Bend'

Major work was being carried out to upgrade the lochside A82 trunk road. At the accident site, known as Weeping Rock, it narrowed at a sharp bend to five metres.

The danger point was known to locals as "Spanish Bend" because of the frequency with which Spanish fish lorries blocked each others path trying to manouevre.

Lord Clarke ruled in favour of the Sargents

Defending the action, lawyers for Mr Dewar claimed the accident was caused by Mr Sargent failing to control his car properly and driving at excessive speed.

But Lord Clarke held that the first minister was liable in the action because of his predecessor's failure to take reasonable care.

The judge said the evidence in the case was that Mr Sargent's life "was his work and family" and added: "Mrs Sargent and the deceased were clearly an extremely close couple".

Mrs Sargent, who is now 54, told the court that she was her husband's "only hobby".

He had built up a prospering business regularly employing a team of subcontractors in his work which was benefitting from the economic boom in southern England at the time of his death.