Teacher paralysed as driver, 87, ran down 3 people in car park
Pensioner spared jail after pressing wrong pedal
AN 87-year-old woman who ploughed her Mazda into three people at a garden centre – leaving a teacher paralysed – has been spared an immediate jail sentence.
Pauline Haynes pressed the wrong pedal after backing out of her parking space at Broomfield’s farm shop near Droitwich Spa, causing the car to reverse sharply, Birmingham Crown Court heard.
She sent tables and plant displays flying before colliding into Nicola Weir, who was left severely injured, and her eight-year-old son Kyle, who escaped with a graze despite being knocked to the ground.
But in a panic Haynes kept her foot down and smashed into a tree, spinning the Mazda and colliding into Dawn Walters.
The 50-year-old chemistry teacher had to be airlifted to hospital but was left permanently wheelchair-bound, while she emotionally described her life as ‘‘ruined’’.
Haynes, of Pearmain Close,
Worcester, was not aware she had hit anyone until she was helped out of her car when she said: ‘‘What have I done? I hope there are no broken bones’’.
She admitted two charges of causing serious injury by dangerous driving and was sentenced to a two-year prison term, suspended for two years, as well as banned from the roads for a decade.
Judge Martin Hurst described the injuries to Mrs Walters as being of the ‘‘highest level’’.
But he added: “In my judgment this can properly be described as a tragic accident.”
He said Haynes now posed zero risk to the public without a licence and car and showed genuine remorse. Haynes must also pay a victim surcharge and £500 in costs while any compensation to her victims will be determined by the High Court.
The incident happened at around noon on Monday, August 31 last year at the Holt Heath-based garden centre.
Jason Aris, prosecuting, said Mrs Weir suffered a broken pelvis, brain haemorrhage and dislocations in her neck. She is expected to make a full recovery but doctors estimated it could take up to a year.
Mrs Walters suffered multiple fractures to her spine and is now tetraplegic, paralysed from the neck down with weakness in all of her limbs but some use of her hand.
A collision investigator concluded Haynes unintentionally accelerated by pressing the wrong pedal which was ‘‘common among elderly drivers’’, and her failure to change out of reverse ‘‘compounded the situation’’.
Haynes gave a statement to police which said: “I am truly sorry and devastated
at what has happened. I will live with the consequences of this for my life.”
Belinda Ariss, defending, said: “She surrendered her licence voluntarily and lives with what she has done to the two victims on a daily basis.”
Mrs Walters emotionally addressed the court, saying the incident had ‘‘shattered’’ her and ‘‘taken everything away from me’’.
She said she was no longer able to teach A-level chemistry because of the loss of dexterity in her fingers whilst her paralysis had other ‘‘dreadful consequences’’ on her bodily
functions and ability to carry out basic tasks without assistance. She said: “What is left of my life? I’m desperately unhappy. My worth as an individual no longer exists.
“Sometimes I can’t see the use in carrying on and I would have preferred to have died.”
The teacher broke down at the end of her statement adding: “How can you not even try and stop?
“I don’t think anybody understands tetraplegia. You see me sitting in a chair. The chair is the least of it. The chair is easy. The rest of it is destroying.”