Driver ran off after collision
A student“panicked”after speeding through a red traffic light in his powerful BMW and smashing into another car, injuring its passenger, in the Letham area of Perth.
Twenty-four-year-old Edison Lika of Spiershall Terrace, Yoker, Glasgow, had no insurance and made off in a bid to avoid detection.
Several police units were alerted and carried out a major search for the vehicle.
He was later spotted on foot, wearing a distinctive striped football shirt, and again tried to avoid arrest by legging it. But he was traced in a nearby garden and faced the consequences at Perth Sheriff Court.
The court was told that Karen McCabe was injured as the car, driven by her husband Kevin, was written off by the force of the impact which shunted it to the opposite side of the road.
SheriffWilliamWood said Lika’s actions could have resulted in him having“death on his hands.”
He added: “This was an extraordinarily stupid sequence of events.
“This was clearly an appalling course of driving and you not only placed yourself, and others in the car, but also Mr and Mrs McCabe, at serious risk.
“I have given some serious thought whether a custodial sentence was the only one open to me.”
But there was an alternative - and he ordered the accused to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work within the next six months. He will also be restricted to his home from 7pm-7am for the next 163 days and was put off the road for 27 months. He will have to re-sit the extended driving test before he can get behind the wheel again.
He admitted driving his BMW 330M Sport dangerously and at excessive speed on Dalreoch Place, Campsie Road and Cluny Terrace, Perth, on May 14 last year.
He had no insurance and also ran a red light before colliding with the McCabe’s car. He then failed to stop after the smash and give his personal details.
Depute fiscal Bill Kermode said that the accused’s number plate had been left at the crash scene following the force of the impact.
A solicitor for the accused said:“The offences constituted a series of stupid decisions.
“He didn’t know Perth and had been driving at speed before causing the smash at a junction.