Crash driver spared jail
Rider left with serious injuries
An elderly motorcyclist suffered horrific injuries in a road smash near Scarborough - but the driver who was at fault walked free from court.
Joe Leonard, 26, wasn’t speeding or overtaking but “inexplicably” drifted onto the wrong side of the road as he approached a bend on the brow of a hill at Cloughton Bank.
Leonard’s Toyota MR2 ploughed into an oncoming motorbike whose rider, Alan Atkinson, 72, was driving on the correct side of the A171, York Crown Court heard.
Mr Atkinson-suffered devastating injuries including five broken ribs, a punctured lung, three broken toes and a severe knee injury which required skin grafts.
The ex-military man spent three weeks in hospital and, a year on from the accident, still suffers from serious physical and psychological trauma.
The court heard his life had been torn apart and he now needed a walking stick. Leonard, of Barugh Green Road, Barnsley, stayed at the scene until emergency services arrived, said prosecutor Laura Addy. He couldn’t explain why his car had drifted over the double white lines in the middle of the road.
Judge Andrew Stubbs QC said that because of Leonard’s community work, otherwise good character and the fact that he had “contributed massively” to raising funds for cancer charities, he could suspend the inevitable jail sentence. Leonard was given a 13-month suspended prison term and 100 hours’ unpaid work. He was banned from driving for two years.