Driver who left girl, 15 for dead is given just a £500 fine and year ban
HOOKED up to machines, her face bloodied, this was schoolgirl Georgia Addy hours after she was mown down by a hit-and-run driver.
The 15-year-old was left for dead by the roadside and put in a coma after being airlifted to hospital following the smash.
Last night her parents criticised the ‘crazy’ justice system after Lee Griffiths, 29, walked free from court with a £500 fine and a short driving ban.
Stephen and Sharon Addy said their daughter, who has ambitions to become a doctor, suffered life-changing injuries, but motorist Griffiths had got away with a ‘slap on the wrist’.
Mr Addy, 61, said: ‘Georgia is not the same girl now. We lost her that day, and now we’re trying to get her back to where she was. Griffiths got off with a slap on the wrist – it’s totally wrong.’
Preston Crown Court heard that Georgia was walking home from school, in Burscough, Lancashire, when the accident happened last September.
The youngster was yards from her front door when Griffiths’ Mercedes van mounted the pavement at 30mph and crashed into her, tossing her 10ft through a tree and into a neighbour’s garden.
Griffiths, of Maghull, Liverpool, failed to dial 999 and drove off. Georgia wasn’t found until ten minutes later. She was airlifted to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool with serious head and brain injuries. She spent three days in an induced coma before having operations including six hours of surgery to repair damage to her knee.
She was in hospital for three months, before being released at Christmas. Grif- fiths was traced by police and initially charged with causing serious injury by dangerous driving.
But prosecutors dropped the more serious charge and instead he admitted the lesser offence of driving without due care and attention last month.
He was fined £500, banned from driving for 12 months and ordered to pay £250 costs.
Mr Addy, who described Griffiths as a ‘total scumbag’, added: ‘ He drove along the pavement at 30mph and didn’t stop until 65 metres after he hit Georgia. He didn’t phone emergency services. Georgia bounced on to his windscreen and smashed all her face. She was flung 10ft high, bounced off a wall, and was knocked through a small tree.
‘She landed in the patio area of one of our neighbours. The guy who found her told me that nothing could prepare him for what he saw.’
Mrs Addy, 57, who has terminal cancer, said the sentence handed to Griffiths was ‘absolutely crazy’, adding: ‘He carried on driving, he never stopped, tossing her up like a rag doll. Georgia had horrendous injuries.
‘Surely the justice system should give victims and their families some sort of closure? Wayne Rooney was given a two-year driving ban and he didn’t hit anyone. It’s absolutely crazy.’
Despite her injuries, Georgia sat her GCSEs in May. She has gone to college and hopes to study medicine at university. ‘What a tough year it’s been,’ she wrote on Facebook. ‘I’ve come a long way but I have so much further to go. I’ve changed drastically but I honestly couldn’t thank Alder Hey enough. Thank you for a second chance at life.’
‘The driver is a total scumbag’