A TAXI driver is to stand trial later this year charged with mowing down and murdering an amateur footballer from Neilston.

Derek McClinton is accused of killing Craig Kearney in East Kilbride, Lanarkshire, on March 5, 2017.

Prosecutors claim McClinton hit 24-year-old Craig with his car, knocking him to the ground, before driving over his head and body.

It is alleged he then failed to get medical help and left Craig, of Kingston Avenue, lying injured on the road in the dark.

Craig, who had played for AFC Bonnyholm, in the Pollok area of Glasgow, later died.

McClinton, of East Kilbride, also faces a separate charge of then attempting to pervert the course of justice.

This includes a claim he did “continue in the course of (his) employment as a private hire taxi driver” in the car afterwards.

It is said this allowed “video footage” taken by a device in the vehicle to be erased.

The charge also states that 49-year-old McClinton washed the car in “an attempt to destroy evidence.”

McClinton, represented at the time by QC Donald Findlay, entered a not guilty plea at a hearing at the High Court in Glasgow in February last year.

A trial was due to take place in October last year but was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

McClinton had then been due to face trial this week but the Crown Office has confirmed it has now been rearranged for July.