Driver nearly killed girl after high-speed overtake on bend
ASPEEDING driver overtook a van on a blind bend and hit a girl, leaving her with serious injuries from which she has yet to recover two years on.
At first Patrick Lynn denied being responsible for the 15-yearold’s injuries, blaming the van driver for braking and his decision to overtake.
But at Warwick Crown Court he changed his plea to guilty to a charge of causing serious injury by dangerous driving in Kingsbury Road, Curdworth, near Sutton Coldfield.
Lynn, 29, of Rubery Lane South, Rubery, was jailed for 25 months and banned from driving for three years.
Prosecutor Charles Crinion said that on December 23, 2017, a driver was overtaken by Lynn’s VW Golf “in a way that caused her concern” just as the dual carriageway section of Kingsbury Road ended.
As he then overtook a van, Lynn would have had no view ahead of the girl crossing the road. As she got halfway across, she heard a horn sound – and was hit by Lynn’s Golf. She ended up lying in the road with a badly-broken leg.
The girl was taken by ambulance to hospital with a puncture wound and fractures to both bones in her lower leg which were repaired with titanium pins.
By November last year her leg had still not recovered and she needed support.
She was suffering from swelling and a loss of sensation, and needed further surgery.
In an impact statement the girl said: “I wanted him to know what he’s done to me and the effect it has had on my life. I will never be the same. I have had to have another operation, and I have more scars on my leg and I have constant pain.
“Patrick Lynn has stolen two years of my life and left me scarred and in pain. He could easily have killed me.”
The girl, who is now in the sixth form, added: “I want him to remember this forever.”
Mr Crinion said that Lynn, who had a previous conviction for dangerous driving when he was just 15, gave the police his details at the scene of the crash, but he later failed to respond when asked to attend a police station for a voluntary interview.
Nick Devine, defending, said Lynn had not been racing the van, and they had both overtaken a car ahead of them properly, but he accepted he had been driving too close to the van.
“What happened is that the red van applies the brakes, and Mr Lynn is driving too close,” he said. “He made a split-second decision between going into the back of it or attempting to go round it.”
Asking the judge to consider a suspended sentence, Mr Devine said Lynn, who has a sevenmonth-old child, was doing a college course to become a gas fitter and “has prospects”.
But Judge Andrew Lockhart told Lynn: “Crass, foolish driving such as you engaged in has life-long consequences for that human being. She stepped out. It would have been perfectly safe for her to do so, but you and that van were going too fast.
“This young woman has been very severely injured. It has affected all aspects of her life.”