‘I thought I was going to die’
DANIELLE ROPER
A SHOP worker has spoken of his terror after he was dragged 30ft across a car park as he hung off a getaway car.
Speaking after crook Carl Poynton was jailed, Ben Lee, 21, told the Observer how he feared for his life after trying to grab the keys from Poynton’s car as he tried to flee the Farmfoods store on the Viaduct in Accrington.
He said: “There was a moment when I was hanging on to his car door, the wheels were going backwards and I thought I was going to go under, that I was going to die.
“I was terrified, it was
JUDGE Beverley Lunt told the hearing that Carl Poynton had a ‘dreadful record’ and only an immediate jail sentence was appropriate.
The court heard how Poyton had previously breached 35 court orders for earlier offences.
Sentencing, she said: “The difficulty I have with you is that you horrific.” The assistant manager, who lives in Burnley, was dragged along the gravel car park as the car reversed, hitting his head on the door as Poynton slammed it closed.
He said: “He stopped the car to change gear and that’s when myself and a customer managed to get the key out .
“We tried to detain him but he pulled a screwdriver and I wasn’t in any fit state to take him on after banging my head.
“I managed to get back inside and just tried to get my breath back - I was just so relieved to be alive.”
Mr Lee, who has worked for the Farmfoods com- always seem to find an excuse for going back to committing crime.
“Only you can stop taking illegal drugs, legal highs and methadone.
“It’s no excuse to say ‘my methadone was stopped so therefore I went out and took legal highs’ and, as you put it to the probation officer, was ‘off my head’ when you went into pany since leaving school returned to work the day after the incident.
He said he acted without thinking when he realised what had happened. He said: “It was just the fact he’d taken stuff and I reacted the same way I would have done if that stuff was mine.”
Mr Lee added: “I am a lot more wary now of who and what’s around me, even when I’m walking to get my bus home after work.
“I don’t think mentally you can ever recover from what was a near-death experience but you just have to try and deal with it.” Farmfoods. You have got a dreadful record petty offences and dishonesty and for breaching court orders and you have been given so many chances.
“If this was just the burglary at Farmfoods then I would look seriously at giving you a chance, but it went up such a notch once you drove that car away with Mr Lee hanging out of it. I do take account and I accept that this is panic. You are not trying to hurt anybody. I understand that and I can accept that so I can reduce the sentence. It must be an immediate sentence of imprisonment.
“In my judgement the ABH and the dangerous driving are one and the same thing so they can’t be differentiated.”