A MUM-of-three told the Jack Anderson murder trial that a car was driven past a primary school on the wrong side of the road at an estimated 50-55mph as children left for the day.

The High Court in Glasgow heard that shortly afterwards, ten-year-old Jack was knocked down and killed as he crossed nearby Saughton Road North.

Sandra Wylie, 41, was giving evidence at the trial of Isaac Purcell, 26, who admits driving the green Peugeot 406 which struck Jack but denies murdering him.

Mrs Wylie told the court she was at Corstorphine Primary School on Corstorphine High Street around 3pm on October 5 last year to pick up two of her children.

She said they were waiting to cross at the crossing outside the school when a car sped past.

She said: “It was the fastest car I’ve ever seen on that road. I’m guessing it was doing about 50- 55mph.”

She said that the car was on the wrong side of the road as it headed towards a junction. She told the jury that about 20 seconds later the car was followed by a police car with its siren blaring.

When asked by defence counsel Bert Kerrigan QC if the car could have been doing 40mph, she replied: “It was way, way faster than that.”

Margaret Anderson, 66, known as Pearl, who has been a lollipop lady for 27 years, said she was shocked at the speed of car.

She said: “It was on the wrong side and was doing about 60mph. There were children coming out of school. It was going about three times as fast as the other cars.”

The jury was shown a security video which showed Purcell driving along Ladywell Road, followed by a police car just minutes before Jack died.

The video was obtained by police from Ladywell House.

Civil servant Christine Baker, 53, who works there, said that she and fellow workers saw a green car go past in “a flash”.

Joiner Kenneth White, 53, told the court a Peugeot 406 passed him at “about 70mph” as he queued at temporary traffic lights in Corstorphine High Street.

Earlier, 63-year-old Christine Styles from Corstorphine told of seeing Purcell - whom she identified in court - driving in a green car along St John’s Road at “enormous” speed. She claimed he pulled out of traffic and accelerated away at high speed on the wrong side of the road.

She said he was followed about 20 seconds later by a police car.

Mrs Styles said: “It was extremely dangerous. I though he must have done something desperate to go away like that.”

Purcell is accused of driving with criminal disregard for the safety of other road users and murdering Jack as he crossed with the “green man” at a pedestrian crossing in Saughton Road North on October 5 last year. He denies the charges against him. The trial before Lord Uist continues.

THE prospect of a waste incinerator being built in the Lothians has moved a step nearer after city council chiefs backed the move.

The new Lib Dem-SNP coalition is supporting the idea of a new “energy from waste” processing plant in a bid to cut the amount of waste going to landfill.

That is likely to mean an incinerator burning rubbish to produce electricity being built in the Lothians. But the local authority must find ways to increase recycling, as councils face being fined if they can’t reach a target of recycling 55 per cent of waste by 2020.

However, a council spokes-woman today insisted the authority was on track to reach its own recycling target of 75 per cent of waste by 2020.

A location for any incinerator has yet to be decided, but sites in East Lothian and Midlothian are said to be among the favourites.

The idea of supporting the new processing plant was agreed by the council’s environment committee in private on Tuesday.

Councillor Steve Burgess, Green Party environment spokesman, said: “There can be no doubt, a new waste treatment facility to handle Edinburgh’s household waste is very likely to be a mass burn incinerator.”

Waste operator Viridor unveiled proposals for a 140 million incinerator near Dunbar last month. It would be capable of dealing with 450,000 tonnes of waste a year - more than twice the amount produced by Edinburgh.

Viridor has also lodged plans for waste plant facilities in Portobello, but this would be where waste is initially collected, not treated.

In March the Scottish Government announced 48m funding to increase recycling and find new ways to get rid of “residual waste” which cannot be reduced, recycled or composted.

Jeni Mackay, of the Communities Against Toxics Scotland, which is helping to campaign against Viridor’s plans for an incinerator in Dunbar, said: “The facts about the environmental side-effects of incinerators have not been made clear.

“You are actually generating waste from incineration because of the tonnes of ash produced.

“And the pollutants from the incineration process have to be released somewhere.

“Running incineration alongside recycling and re-use is a myth. There is no incentive here to reduce the waste output.”

But council environment leader Robert Aldridge said: “The new administration is fully committed to increasing recycling rates in the city and our target for Edinburgh is 75 per cent recycled by 2020.

“Strenuous efforts across Lothian and Borders have boosted recycling rates from 4.8 per cent in 2000 to an average of 27.6 per cent in 2006, with a rate of 30 per cent predicted for 2008 and plans to exceed the National Waste Plan’s 55 per cent target by 2020.”

She said the council would be looking for companies to bring forward ideas of alternatives to incineration.

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Alltel, the wireless phone company, agreed last night to be sold to a consortium of private equity firms for $27.5 billion, marking the largest buyout ever in the telecommunications industry.

The consortium includes the Texas Pacific Group and the private equity arm of Goldman Sachs. The deal would make Alltel, based in Little Rock, Ark., the latest large public company to seek to go private amid a frenzy of deal-making among private equity firms.

The transaction ends months of speculation about the future of Alltel, which was built through a series of acquisitions of regional carriers and now has more than 12 million customers. Alltel had announced earlier this year that it was considering various options for its future, sending its shares up in anticipation that it might be sold.

Under the terms of the deal, Texas Pacific and Goldman will pay $71.50 a share for Alltel. That represents a premium of about 10 percent over Alltels closing price on Friday and about 25 percent over its price late last year, when speculation about its future began to build. Two weeks ago, William Power, an analyst at Robert W. Baird Company, said that Alltel could fetch $70 a share, sending its shares up 3 percent.

It is unclear how Alltel shareholders will react. In recent buyout attempts, shareholders have sought to reject deals in hopes of pushing the buyers to pay more. Just last week, a consortium of investors seeking to buy Clear Channel Communications, the giant radio broadcaster, raised its bid after Clear Channel shareholders threatened to vote against the deal.

Texas Pacific and Goldman came in with their offer last week, hoping to short-circuit what was expected to be a formal auction. Several other private equity consortiums had lined up to bid for the company, including the Blackstone Group with Providence Equity Partners, and the Carlyle Group with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts Company.

Alltel has been considered a ripe takeover target ever since it spun off its wire-line business in 2005. Some analysts had speculated that Verizon, whose wireless customers switch to Alltels network when they exit Verizons coverage area, would eventually buy Alltel.

Merrill Lynch, Stephens and JPMorgan Chase advised Alltel. Citigroup and Goldman advised Texas Pacific and Goldman Sachs.