Woman admits killing two-year-old boy in car crash

A woman has admitted causing the death of a toddler in a car crash in the Highlands.

Iain Mackay was asleep in his booster seat at the time of the collision on a sharp bend on the A99 coastal road between Latheron and Wick.

The 35-month-old sustained serious brain and spinal injuries from which he died days later.

The other car’s driver, Sonya Henderson, had “for reasons unknown” veered on the wrong side of the road, Wick Sheriff Court heard on Monday.

Iain had been returning home to Wick with his mum from a Sunday afternoon trip to a play park.

They were heading north in a blue Peugeot 208, being driven by another woman, when the crash occurred at Occumster, just north of Lybster.

Henderson, from the village, had been due to go to trial, but on Monday, she pleaded guilty to causing Iain’s death by careless driving on August 22, 2021.

The 47-year-old claimed to police that she had braked after seeing an oncoming car on the wrong side of the road.

But specialist police crash investigators found it had been her Nissan Qashqai which had entered the bend on the opposing carriageway.

Iain’s mum, then 26, had to be freed from the wreckage by firefighters after being trapped in the front passenger seat of the Peugeot. She was in hospital for two-and-a-half months after being treated for multiple fractures to her pelvis, femur and hand.

The driver, then 25, was also injured, as was Henderson, who suffered a fractured and dislocated ankle.

Sheriff Neil WIlson deferred sentence for a social work report until January 21 for a social work report, banning her from driving in the meantime.