Pensioner spared jail for freak fatal car park crash
A pensioner who caused the death of a great-grandmother in a freak car accident wept as a judge told her she would not go to prison.
Jean Epsley mistakenly hit the accelerator of her Toyota Yaris causing it to shoot through the barrier at Maidstone Hospital car park, without her in it, and into a road sign which struck 95-yearold Jean Downing.
The widow, who had been sitting in a wheelchair following an appointment, was flown to King’s College Hospital in London but died from multiple injuries.
On Friday, Epsley, of Woodlands Road, Ditton, admitted causing death by dangerous driving.
Suspending 14 months imprisonment for 18 months, Judge Julian Smith called it “a tragic, extraordinary and exceptional case”.
Maidstone Crown Court heard Epsley, 72, had taken her husband, 83, to the hospital, in Hermitage Lane, on May 30 last year and they were about to head home.
Prosecutor John Fitzgerald said Mrs Downing had been on a grass verge near the birthing centre at the back of the site.
The mother-of-three, who had three grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren, was waiting for her carer to return from paying for her car park ticket so she could go home, to Staplehurst.
Epsley had got out of her car to put her pre-paid ticket into the machine when it began to move forward.
She was half out and reacted by mistakenly putting her foot on the accelerator.
“That caused it to lurch forward, through the barrier and on to the kerb, striking the road sign and railings,” said Mr Fitzgerald.
“In an extraordinary chain of events, the impact of the Toyota into the road sign caused a part of it to dislodge, fly through the air and, almost unbelievably, strike Mrs Downing.
“It caused a number of injuries and rendered her unconscious.”
Epsley, a mother-of-two who has a walking frame, told police she thought she had left the semiautomatic car in neutral, but accepted it was in drive.
Her husband Brian had shouted: “Brake Jean, brake.”
Epsley, who has driven for 43 years without any convictions, was ordered to pay £800 in costs.