Driver avoids jail after head-on collision
One victim received life-changing injuries
AN Earl Shilton driver who sped away from traffic lights smashed head-on into another car leaving an elderly man and his wife severely injured.
Mark Biggs, 41, was also left badly hurt in the crash along with his mother who was a front seat passenger after he lost control of his new high-powered Mitsubishi Evoke.
The lorry driver, of Windermere Road pleaded guilty to two counts of causing serious injury by dangerously driving in Aylestone Road, Leicester.
He was given a 15 month jail sentence, suspended for two years, with 180 hours of unpaid work.
Biggs was also banned from driving for two years.
Leicester Crown Court heard the smash happened on the afternoon of March 6 2015 at around 4.15pm.
Biggs was taking his mother for a ride in a car which he’d bought two weeks earlier.
He pulled up at a set of red traffic lights heading out of the city along Aylestone Road, near Saffron Lane.
When the lights turned green, Biggs accelerated at speed before veering across the road and crashing into an oncoming white Vauxhall Corsa, said Gary Short, prosecuting.
Witnesses reported hearing a loud screech and a huge bang.
Mr Short said: “He accelerated hard from the lights and, for reasons we may never know, lost control and veered across the road and had a head-on collision at speed.”
The 60-year-old woman in the Corsa, which was being driven “perfectly properly” by her husband, suffered “life changing injuries”.
They included a broken verte- brae, a ruptured diaphragm, a perforated bowel, a broken ankle and four fractured ribs.
She underwent major surgery and was in an induced coma for three weeks.
The court was told the woman is no longer able to do her daily sixmile run, has restricted mobility and suffers from depression.
Her 80-year-old husband fractured both collarbones and four ribs, and underwent surgery to insert a plate into a broken arm.
Biggs’s mother, who suffered a broken sternum and severe bruising, was in an induced coma for several days and an inpatient for two weeks.
Biggs fractured his sternum, hand and foot, and, like the others involved in the crash, is said to have ongoing difficulties.
Judge Nicholas Dean QC said: “I accept it was a one-off error and won’t be repeated.”
He said the defendant’s mother described her son telling her to “hold tight” just before the impact as he anticipated a collision.
The judge said: “There was, at the very least, heavy-footed acceleration and a serious error of judgement which caused him to lose control of the vehicle, which was relatively new to him and he was unfamiliar with.
“He cannot be described as a boy racer like so many young men who drive stupidly under the influence of drink, drugs or both.
“Since the early 2000s he’s been gainfully employed as the driver of a heavy goods vehicle and there’s no reason to think he’s anything other than normally a sensible and prudent driver, and his record with his employer bears that out.”
The judge said the injuries to the victims were serious, especially for the woman in the Corsa, who was left “seriously disadvantaged”.
He said that “thankfully the defendant was insured”, and that there was “no reason” for the insurers to delay making settlements to those who suffered “through no fault of their own”, including the defendant’s mother.
Helen Johnson, defending, said in mitigation the ban would mean the loss of Biggs’ employment as an HGV driver and that his home was being sold as a result.
She said: “It wasn’t persistent bad driving and there are no aggravating features such as drink or drugs, but it was dangerous and had serious consequences. He has to live with what he’s caused not only to his mother but the two other people he didn’t know.”