{"id":720915,"date":"2026-07-31T12:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T12:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/720915\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T12:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T12:50:08","slug":"banned-driver-in-stolen-maserati-killed-pensioner-in-garden-in-85mph-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/720915\/","title":{"rendered":"Banned driver in stolen Maserati killed pensioner in garden in 85mph crash"},"content":{"rendered":"

A disqualified driver with 90 previous convictions has admitted causing the death of a great-grandfather after crashing into his garden and hitting him with a stolen car.<\/p>\n

Fraser Garden, 55, killed John Bell, also known as Jack, in Broughty Ferry when the crash happened in April<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A court was told Garden, who had been given two previous lifetime driving bans, was driving at almost three times the speed limit and had taken cocaine.<\/p>\n

Judge Lord Braid, who described Garden’s actions as “truly appalling”, deferred sentence until 21 August.<\/p>\n

Garden pleaded guilty at the High Court in Edinburgh to causing John Bell’s death by dangerous driving<\/p>\n

The court was told that Garden had been released on bail over multiple shoplifting charges a week before the fatal crash.<\/p>\n

On the day of the collision he had stolen a Maserati Quattroporte from the nearby West End Garage. <\/p>\n

Garden then drove it at speed, overtaking vehicles and forcing his way between oncoming traffic.<\/p>\n

He then drove through a red light before speeding up a hill on the wrong side of the road.<\/p>\n

Garden then lost control of the car, which clipped the kerb, hit a traffic island, and crashed through a hedge into John Bell’s garden, hitting the pensioner and pinning him to a wall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A disqualified driver with 90 previous convictions has admitted causing the death of a great-grandfather after crashing into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":720916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-720915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=720915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/720916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}