Family tell of lives devastated by driver
A FAMILY has told how their lives have been “devastated” by a driver who ploughed his highperformance sports car into their living room, causing lifechanging injuries. James Andrew Sparham, 29, inset, was jailed for five years for dangerous driving and causing serious injury after his Golf R smashed into the house in Rawcliffe, York and caught fire. David and Claire Garnett were watching television at home in the early hours of Sunday September 3, as their youngest son slept upstairs, when the “appalling incident” unfolded. Following the hearing yesterday at York Crown Court they said the “devastating incident brought serious injury, hardship, uncertainty, anxiety and depression” and their lives have been “shattered”. Mrs Garnett was in the kitchen when they described “the sound of a bomb going off ”. Mr Garnett, 54, was trapped under the debris which his wife had to clear before dragging him away from the burning car, which set fire to the house. The couple said: “David sustained multiple injuries including loss of vision in his right eye, extreme lower limb injuries requiring extensive skin grafts, a broken nose and numerous softtissue lacerations and injuries. “David required a six-week period of hospitalisation at the Leeds Major Trauma unit and York Hospital and a gruelling period of treatment which is ongoing. David is going to be left with lifelong injuries as a result of this criminal incident. Claire suffered back and neck injuries as well as extensive soft-tissue trauma and both have suffered severe post-traumatic stress.” They added: “The one place anyone should always be able to feel safe is within the four walls of your own home.” Sparham’s two passengers, a woman in her 30s and a man in his 20s, sustained broken bones, lacerations and fractures. The labourer, of Geldof Road, Huntington, York, was also banned from driving for seven and a half years and will have to sit an extended driving test before he is allowed back on the roads.