DEATH DRIVER IS JAILED OVER CRASH COVER-UP; Failed bid to foil cops after impact.

Byline: Gordon McIIwraith

A DRIVER who left a man dead in a hit-and-run then tried to cover it up was jailed yesterday.

Boozed-up Allan Edmunds, 54, ran over Derek Maxwell, 36, who was on his hands and knees in the road after being thrown from a car when a joyriding pal lost control.

After Edmunds hit Derek in his Land Rover Freelander, he sped off and hid the vehicle in woods.

Then he got a wing mirror from another Freelander to replace one damaged in the impact.

The day after the tragedy, Edmunds wrote to the DVLA and claimed he had sold the car, giving bogus details of a "buyer". But when police tracked him down, Edmunds - a boatbuilder from Breakish on the Isle of Skye - owned up.

At the High Court in Edinburgh, Lord Brailsford told him: "You got yourself in a hole and you dug deeper and deeper."

He jailed Edmunds, who admitted causing Derek's death by careless driving and attempting to pervert the course of justice, for two years and three months. Derek, originally from Glasgow, died on the A87 Invergarry to Uig road in Inverness-shire last August. He was in a stolen Seat car driven by Patrick Gilheaney, 27.

Gilheaney, of Lancashire was three times the drink-drive limit and doing 100mph on the wrong side of the road when he crashed.

Gilheaney, who admitted dangerous driving and car theft, was jailed for three years and banned from driving for 10 years.

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TRAGIC: Derek Maxwell, left, died after Gilheaney, right, crashed