A Danish tourist who left a woman seriously injured after driving on the wrong side of the road because he forgot he was in Scotland was fined £8000.

Jesper Hart-Hansen, 50, was also banned from driving for four and a half years and was told he would have to pass the extended driving test if he ever wanted to drive in the United Kingdom again.

Perth Sheriff Court heard how Hart-Hansen, a former executive at Ebay, momentarily forgot he was not in his native Denmark and turned out of his holiday home onto the wrong side of the road.

He drove for nearly a mile on the wrong side of the road before causing a head-on crash with the first vehicle he encountered on the A85.

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Sheriff Lindsay Foulis told him he was imposing a significant fine because it was not practical to give Hart-Hansen any other community-based work order as he lived outwith the UK.

Hart-Hansen’s case made Scottish legal history as he became the first person to be convicted of a new offence of causing injury through dangerous driving.

The Harvard-educated university manager got mixed-up when he left a Perthshire estate and drove on the wrong side of the A85 near Comrie in Perthshire.

Community governments manager Lorna Elliot, 50, from Oban, was seriously hurt in the collision and was off work for a year as a result of her injuries.

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Financial investor and former Ebay executive Hart-Hansen, from Lyngby, Denmark, admitted causing serious injury by driving dangerously near Dunira Estate on 25 January last year.

Fiscal depute Sue Ruta said: “The accused left Dunira Estate where he had been holidaying with a party of people. He was heading to Edinburgh airport to catch a flight home.

“On joining the A85 there was no other traffic on the road and he began driving in the right hand lane – the opposing carriageway. He travelled 0.7 miles in the opposing carriageway.

“She said his rented Vauxhall Astra smashed into Mrs Elliot’s Seat Ibiza on a sweeping bend and left her with a number of broken bones and other injuries.

“He stated to the police that he had been driving on the right hand side of the road due to the fact he had forgotten what country he was in.

“Solicitor David Duncan, defending, said: “His only explanation can be that it was his usual process to select that lane when entering a roadway.

“Unfortunately for Mrs Elliot hers is the first car he encounters. My client made a mistake when he entered the carriageway. He made a critical mistake at the outset of the journey which released a chain of events.”

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Sheriff Lindsay Foulis said: “He has momentarily forgotten he is not driving at home and started driving on the wrong side of the road.

“Parliament has decided it is not simply the driving which is a factor to be taken into account, but the new section – causing serious injury by dangerous driving – is presumably saying causing the injury is an aggravating factor.”

The businessman lists his current position as Consultant to Venture Funds and Top 100 Corporations and is an active investor in companies in Denmark, Sweden and the USA.

He received an MBA from Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, where he studied on a Fulbright Postgraduate Scholarship.

He previously earned his BA from Copenhagen School of Economics and more recently worked as Innovations and New Ventures Manager for Ebay Inc in Europe.