A FORMER Kilwinning resident convicted of causing a mum-of-three’s death in a horrific head-on car crash has never held a full driving licence, jurors have been told.

Travelling salesman David MacDonald drove around the country on a provisional licence for almost 24 years and lied about holding a full licence in order to get insurance cover, the High Court at Livingston heard.

A jury found MacDonald guilty of causing the death of 45-year-old Leeanne Aitken by driving without due care and attention.

MacDonald, from Paisley, had denied he was driving dangerously in the moments before the crash in Livingston on January 8, 2020.

He was convicted of the lesser offence of careless driving after claiming in his defence that he believed he was on a dual carriageway and was “on autopilot” at the time of the accident.

Unknown to the jury, MacDonald had pleaded guilty before his trial began to obtaining a motor insurance by fraud while he was living in Kilwinning.

The insurance policy was obtained from Tesco Underwriting Ltd on September 10, 2019.

Jurors weren’t told about the insurance fraud until after they returned their verdict on the grounds that information about previous or pending convictions might have prejudiced their judgement.

Following the unanimous guilty verdict, advocate depute Isabella Ennis moved that the accused should be remanded in custody because “a reasonable sentence was one of imprisonment”.

But judge Lord Lake rejected that suggestion and released MacDonald on bail.

However, the 44-year-old was ordered to surrender any driving licence to the court and was made subject to an interim disqualification.

The court had previously heard that Leeanne, from Livingston, West Lothian, was driving a close family friend home from her work at a fast food restaurant when MacDonald’s Audi Q7 crashed head on into her Ford Mondeo.

The impact was so severe that her car’s engine was pushed rearwards through the bulkhead into the passenger compartment.

Leeanne suffered catastrophic injuries including a burst heart, bleeding on the brain and multiple fractures and internal injuries. She was pronounced dead at the scene. 

Her 19-year-old front seat passenger Sofia Crichton sustained severe head injuries, including bleeding and bruising on the brain, broken neck bones, smashed facial bones and multiple fractures to her ribs, hip, knee and leg.

She spent 10 weeks in hospital before being discharged for rehabilitation.

By chance, Leeanne’s son Graham Tait, 24, had been following his mum’s car because he wanted to break the good news that he had been offered a new job.

He was one of the first on the scene of the tragic accident on the A705 Cousland Road, but was unable to save her.

Police closed the road for more than seven hours while experts probed the cause of the fatal crash.

Accident investigator PC Craig Anderson told the court: “The word carnage comes to mind. There was extensive debris with glass and oil all over the road surface.”

He said he later found gouge marks in the road at the point of impact where MacDonald, on the wrong side of the road, had ploughed into the Mondeo.

He revealed that Leeanne had tried to swerve onto the nearside verge at the last minute but had been prevented from taking evasive action any earlier because of a crash barrier on her side of the road.

His report concluded: “It’s the investigators’ opinion that complete responsibility for this collision rests with the driver of the Audi, David MacDonald.”

MacDonald admitted ignoring obvious road markings that made it obvious he was driving on the wrong side of a two-way road and not a dual carriageway.

He claimed he had not seen a white arrow mark facing in the opposite direction, several large upside down 40mph speed limit signs painted on the road for traffic going the other way and the rear of road signs facing oncoming vehicles.

For between 10 and 15 seconds he also failed to see Leeanne Aitken’s Ford Mondeo and a Honda CRV with a four-year-old girl inside heading towards his Audi Q7, and collided with both of them, damaging all three cars.

MacDonald is due to be sentenced at the High Court in Edinburgh on September 30.