Compensation awarded to widow of cyclist killed in collision with bin lorry reduced after jury concludes he was “58 percent responsible” for fatal crash

The widow of a cyclist who was killed in a collision with a bin lorry has been awarded over £550,000 in compensation for his death – after a jury concluded that the payout should be reduced by over half to reflect that her husband was partially responsible for causing the fatal crash.

William Ronald, a 46-year-old RAF veteran, was riding his bike near the village of Cleish, Kinross-shire, on 25 May 2018, when he was struck by the driver of a refuse truck belonging to Perth and Kinross Council.

He was trapped under the vehicle and, despite the efforts of medical staff, died at the scene.

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Katrina Ronald had taken legal action against the local authority because she believed it was liable for her husband’s death due to the actions of the lorry’s driver, and council employee, Jordan Paterson. She also sued on behalf of her 12-year-old daughter, who she says continues to struggle with grief and sleeps every night with her father’s ashes, which are stored in a teddy bear.

At the Court of Session in Edinburgh yesterday, jurors concluded that that Katrina Ronald should receive £1,319,750 from the council, and that her daughter should be awarded £95,000. Two other members of the family were also awarded £67,500 each in damages.

However, the jury also concluded that Mr Ronald, who served in Afghanistan in the RAF, had acted negligently at the time of the fatal crash, and assessed that he was 58 percent responsible for the incident, with the bin lorry driver receiving 42 percent of the blame.

That decision means that Mrs Ronald’s compensation will be reduced by 58 percent, to just over £554,000.

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The court was told that the collision between the cyclist and the bin lorry took place on a blind bend on the road. According to investigators, Mr Ronald’s bike computer revealed that he had been travelling at 16mph in the moments leading up to the crash, and that he had been riding at 30mph on another part of the road.

The bin lorry, meanwhile, was travelling at 11mph in the moments before the collision.

In his closing speech to the jury, Perth and Kinross Council’s advocate, Ranald Macpherson, argued that Mr Paterson had been driving safely and appropriately at the time of the crash.

“The bicycle was going too fast,” he said. “Mr Paterson was driving at an appropriate speed. There was nothing more he could have done.

“This was a terrible accident which had tragic consequences. However, it was not an accident which was caused by Mr Paterson.”

“No, he’s not dead”

Earlier this week, Mrs Ronald told the court that, on the day of her husband’s death, she went to look for him after he failed to return home, suspecting that he had picked up a puncture during his ride.

She said she then saw an ambulance parked, and that the crew told her that their colleagues were dealing with a cyclist, before informing her that her husband was dead.

“When the police said he’s dead, I said ‘no, he’s not dead’. I started to argue with him – I said ‘no he cannot die’,” she told the court.

“I wanted to see him, but he said you can’t see him. He told me I couldn’t see him. I saw the bin lorry up the road.”

She also said that her husband was “crazy mental” about safety while cycling, and would lecture his daughter if she rode her bike without a helmet.

Mrs Ronald added that the police had told her that the bin lorry was travelling at around 20mph when its driver struck her husband.

She continued: “The police came to speak to me. They asked me the usual questions – ‘Was Willie suicidal?’ I said no.”

She described telling their then-seven-year-old daughter the news as the “worst thing I’ve ever had to do”.

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“No amount of money will ever bring back Mrs Ronald’s husband,” Robert Milligan KC, for Katrina Ronald, told the court this week.

“No sum of money will give her back another Christmas, another birthday, or a wedding anniversary. It won’t allow them to sit on the couch and watch TV together.

“But she was not given time to prepare for this. It came out of the blue. It came on a warm sunny May day.”