Lorry driver in motorway bridge horror is spared jail
A LORRY driver who crashed into a motorway bridge causing damage estimated at £1.5million was spared jail yesterday.
Heavy machinery on the back of Alan Austen’s vehicle smashed into a footbridge on the M20 on August 27 last year.
The impact caused the bridge, between junctions four and three, to collapse on to the London-bound carriageway at Ryarsh in Kent.
A court heard 170 tons of concrete came crashing down. A motorcyclist was left with three broken ribs as he tried to avoid the debris.
Austen, 64, of Darlington, County Durham, was given a 12-month suspended sentence after pleading guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving.
He was also ordered to do hours of unpaid work and banned from driving for three years.
Judge Philip Statman said the incident put the public at considerable risk but miraculously no one was killed.
Maidstone Crown Court was told the load on the back of the lorry was too high to fit under the bridge. In a statement read to the court, the injured motorcyclist, Jim Shaw, 73, of Thamesmead, south-east London, said: “I have no doubt if the bridge had come down a second earlier I could be dead. Since the incident I have suffered physically and mentally. I am constantly in pain.” The crash caused gridlock on one of the busiest weekends of last year and the road was shut for several days.