Ex-theatre boss avoids driving ban over hit and run
Boy left with fractures to ankle, arm and face
AFORMER theatre boss who left a teenage boy with ‘ substantial’ injuries after a hit and run car collision has been spared a driving ban.
Simon Parker, 48, struck the pedestrian as he walked across Newchurch Road in Rawtenstall, causing the boy to be ‘thrown into the air’.
Parker, of Plantation Street, Stacksteads, claimed he stopped his car further down the road and ‘glanced’ back but could not see the teenager and believed he had ‘run off’, a Burnley Magistrates trial heard.
Parker pleaded guilty to driving without due care and attention and was found guilty after a trial of failing to stop after an accident. He was given a community order with unpaid work, but the judge ruled a driving ban would cause him ‘exceptional hardship’.
AFORMER theatre boss who left a teenage boy with ‘substantial’ injuries after a hit and run car collision has avoided a driving ban.
Simon Parker struck the pedestrian as he walked across Newchurch Road in Rawtenstall. The collision caused the boy to be ‘ thrown into the air’ and land on nearby Crankshaw Street.
The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, suffered a fractured left ankle and right arm, a broken left thumb, six facial fractures and needed between 30 and 40 stitches to a wound to his forehead.
Parker, 48, claimed he stopped his car further down Newchurch Road and ‘glanced’ back but could not see the victim lying on the ground and believed he had ‘ run off’, a Burnley Magistrates trial heard. After returning home he called the police to report the collision and that somebody had been ‘ fooling around in front of him’.
Parker, of Plantation Street, Stacksteads pleaded guilty to driving without due care and attention and was found guilty after a trial of failing to stop after an accident.
The former Bacup Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Company managing director was given an 18-month community order with 150 hours’ unpaid work, nine points on his driving licence and ordered to pay £200 costs and an £85 victim surcharge. But he avoided a driving ban after the judge ruled it would cause ‘ exceptional hardship’.
Tom Hynes, prosecuting, said the incident happened at 8.35pm on December 7 last year as the teenager and a friend were walking in the direction of Marl Pits.
The court was told that the teenager had started to cross the road and got about halfway before deciding to turn back and was then struck by Parker’s car as he approached the pavement. Mr Hynes said the friend and another adult witness did not see any brake lights on Parker’s car after the collision and did not see him stop at the scene.
Giving evidence at the trial, Parker claimed he had slowed down, pipped his horn and flashed his lights but then saw the victim do a ‘dance with one leg’ before he ‘slowly’ started to walk back towards the pavement.
Parker said he thought ‘something had been thrown’ at his car which left an ‘oblong hole’ in his windscreen. He told the judge that he stopped 200 yards further up the road and got out of his car to check the scene but ‘couldn’t see anybody’.
Parker said: “I thought the thing to do - morally and legally - was to go home and call the police.”