Police-chase yob who ploughed into mum is jailed
ACAR driver who left a mother brain damaged and suffering from paralysis after smashing into her during a high speed police chase has been jailed.
Lewis Rigby, 23, pleaded guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving and was sentenced to three years and nine months after the head-on collision in Holcombe Brook, on May 31 this year.
The victim Clare King had to be cut free from the car by firefighters and remains in hospital for treatment.
Rigby also pleaded guilty at Bolton Crown Court to driving without insurance or a driving licence. On his release from custody he will be disqualified from driving for six years and eight months.
He had previously been given a suspended sen- tence of two-and-a-half months for aggravated vehicle taking in August 2011, which was activated in October 2011, leaving him behind bars. The court was not told why the sentence was activated at that time.
Mrs King, 36, remains in hospital in a serious but stable condition after sustaining brain damage and a fractured spine and wrist in the crash in May this year.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is investigating the circumstances of the officers’ pursuit before the collision.
The IPCC said that Rigby, of Bell Lane in Bury, had been driving a Honda Civic along Walmersley Road when he was spotted by police.
Officers pursued him through Bury and Ramsbottom town centre before Rigby crashed into Mrs King’s Ford Fiesta on Bolton Road West, near the junction with Longsight Road shortly after 8pm.
Mrs King was knocked unconscious in the collision and had to be cut out of her car, and Bolton Road West was closed while emergency services were on the scene and wreckage from the Honda, Fiesta, and a damaged parked Citroen car were removed.
An IPCC spokesperson said: “The IPCC’s independent investigation continues and is progressing well. Since this incident IPCC investigators have conducted interviews with witnesses and collated CCTV which is currently being reviewed.”