DANGER DRIVER KILLED TOT AND HER GRANDAD; Overtaking led to crash carnage, court is told.

Byline: Gordon McIlwraith

A VAN driver yesterday admitted his dangerous overtaking killed a little girl and her grandfather.

Paul Anderson, 48, and four-year-old Samantha Carr were on their way to the funeral of his niece Vicky Pickering - who had died ina motorway crash weeks earlier - when they were killed.

Yesterday, van driver Ian Shennan, 58, pled guilty at the High Court in Edinburgh to causing their deaths by dangerous driving.

The court was told he kept trying to overtake a van towing a caravan ahead of him as a stretch of dual carriageway ended, despite his van being limited to 63mph.

Hospital Paul, who was travelling in the opposite direction on the A9 between Dalwhinnie and Newtonmore, lost control of his car and caravan as he desperately tried to avoid Shennan's van.

He smashed head-on into another oncoming vehicle and Samantha was killed instantly in the crash.

Paul died after being airlifted to hospital, while his wife Melanie 46, and Samantha's sister, Emma, three, suffered minor injuries.

Prosecutor Alex Prentice said: "The impact was due to Mr Anderson losing control of his car which, in turn, was due solely to the dangerous driving of Mr Shennan, which forced Mr Anderson to take evasive action."

The Andersons and their grand-daughters were travelling from their home in Lancashire to 27-year-old Vicky's funeral in Gairloch, Wester Ross, when the tragedy happened last July.

Mr Prentice said that as Paul swerved to avoid a collision with Sheehan's van, his caravan wheels touched the nearside kerb.

The car and caravan veered on to the other side of the road and smashed into a vehicle being driven by Kenneth Ferguson, who was powerless to avoid the crash.

Mr Prentice added: "There was nowhere for Mr Ferguson to go and all of the witnesses and the police investigator are agreed there was nothing he could do to avoid a collision."

Judge Lord Brodie deferred sentence and Shennan, of Elgin, Moray, was allowed to remain on bail.

After the hearing, Melanie Anderson said she had mixed feelings about Shennan but was grateful that he had pled guilty and spared the family the ordeal of a trial.

She added: "I was dreading giving evidence because I didn't know how I would have coped."

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VICTIMS: Little Samantha and her grandad Paul ROAD HELL: The wreckage of the vehicles involved in the death crash