The family of a Scots teenager who died in a car crash has raised a civil action in the Court of Session against the driver, Charles Gray. Gray was cleared of causing the deaths of his friends, Jayden McConnell, 17, and Kyle Marshall, 19, by careless driving after his car spun out of control and hit a lorry.
The collision happened on a known “greasy corner” on the A91 near Bannockburn Interchange, a large roundabout linking the M9, M80 and other roads. Gray, then 17, had passed his test only the month before the tragedy, on St Patrick’s Day in 2024.
Civil action raised over collision
Kyle’s family has now raised a civil action in the Court of Session over the collision. A spokesman for solicitors Digby Brown said: “A civil action has now been raised in the Court of Session on behalf of the loved ones of Kyle to help them secure answers, support and recognition.
“It would be inappropriate to comment further at this time however we will continue to support the Marshall family during this time.”
Trial details and acquittal
Gray, of Bannockburn, an apprentice electrician, had denied causing the deaths of Jordan and Kyle, both from St Ninians, Stirling, by careless driving. After a five-day trial last November, jurors took less than two and a half hours to find him not guilty.
During the trial at Stirling Sheriff Court, jurors heard Gray’s 2006 Vauxhall Corsa had just left Stirling Services and went out of control on a wet road about 3.50pm, shortly after leaving the roundabout and joining the A91. It crossed the centre line and was struck side-on by a heavy tipper lorry coming the other way.
Impact and aftermath
The impact caused “a significant intrusion” into the rear where Jayden and Kyle were sitting, before sending it careering down the side of the lorry next to a crash barrier where it came to a halt. They died at the scene of multiple injuries.
Gray’s then girlfriend, Lauryn Moir, now 19, in the front passenger seat, was not seriously hurt but Gray himself suffered life-changing consequences. He was no longer breathing when an ambulance crew – on their way to hospital with another patient – arrived on the scene by chance, immediately after the accident, and opened his airway and saved his life. He was airlifted and spent nearly two months in hospital with a ruptured spleen, spine damage and a traumatic frontal lobe brain injury.
Gray said he remembered nothing of the accident or the journey leading up to it, and the first he knew about it was waking from an induced coma four weeks later, and learning he had been in a collision in his car with his girlfriend and two friends. He said when his mother told him Jayden and Kyle had died, he felt “broken”.
Evidence and unanswered questions
During the trial, jurors heard it was a matter of agreement that an analyst who studied data from the Corsa’s insurance company “black box” found Gray had been “the perfect driver” until the collision. Two eyewitnesses said that Gray had been driving either “normally” or “not recklessly” about the same speed as other traffic before losing control, and a police expert who carried out a post-accident examination of the car said it was “unknown” whether or not there could have been a contributing mechanical fault.
The court heard that police vehicle examiners had not carried out some 20 checks on the wreck that might have shed light on what happened, and had not been equipped with a code reader to analyse memory of the crashed vehicle’s on-board diagnostics system, which could have revealed if a braking defect was implicated. The court also heard that the police had not tested the slipperiness, or co-efficient of friction, of the road surface where the loss of control had been said to occur.
