A retired grandfather who nodded off behind the wheel after a day out, leaving two people dead and another seriously injured, has been spared jail.
Andrew Nicoll, now 84, was driving home to Whitley Bay after a countryside walk when his Mazda drifted into oncoming traffic on the A69 – slamming head-on into a Skoda Fabia in a horrifying collision.
Tragically, Nicoll’s close friend and passenger, 81-year-old Keith Aiston, and Catherine Elford, 68, a mother-of-three travelling in the Skoda, were both killed instantly.
The crash happened just before 6pm on November 30 2023, on a dark, unlit stretch of the road near Haydon Bridge, Northumberland, as the pensioner made the near two-hour journey home without stopping for a break.
Newcastle Crown Court heard the likely cause was that Nicoll, a keen walker and amateur photographer, had either fallen asleep or suffered a ‘micro-sleep’ – drifting off for just seconds.
