Letting agent with links to allAgents facing jail over death of pensioner

February 29, 2016February 28, 2016 | Rosalind Renshaw

The owner of a lettings agency is facing jail after being convicted of killing a pedestrian.

Vincent Friel, who owns a letting agency in Glasgow and Edinburgh and who said he invested a six-figure sum into review site allAgents, has been told jail is inevitable.

Friel, 44, claimed he had fainted at the wheel of his Range Rover as it struck Charlotte Collins, 68, on a pedestrian crossing by a shopping centre in Glasgow in January 2014.

Friel appeared at the High Court in Edinburgh which heard how the victim and her cousin Margaret Haldane, 69, were both struck.

Friel was taking blood pressure medication at the time of the collision. He was also taking Viagra and medicine to take away headaches that were brought on by having sex.

His lawyers claimed the combined medicines caused his blood pressure to drop to such a low level as to cause him to faint.

Defending, Iain Duguid told jurors there wasn’t enough evidence to convict Friel because he wasn’t in control of his actions at the time of the incident.

But cardiologist Dr Andrew Flapan told the court it was extremely unlikely that Friel had fainted at the wheel.

He told jurors that he had watched CCTV footage of the moments following the collision and that Friel had reversed his car off the pensioners and called for an ambulance.

Someone who had just fainted does not usually recover so quickly, he said.

The jury returned guilty verdicts to charges of causing the death of one of the victims and seriously injuring the second.

Judge John Morris QC deferred sentencing but warned Friel: “A custodial sentence is inevitable.”

He will be sentenced in Glasgow on March 16.

Friel’s investment in allAgents was announced in a trade publication in 2014.

It said: “Friel, director of Glasgow and Edinburgh letting agency and property management firm 1-2-Let, says he is injecting a six-figure sum into allAgents – which already operates from Friel’s business centre – and will become one of its directors.”

Reporting of the trial is here and here

Police Scotland also report the case on their website.