Road-rage driver who paralysed two sisters gets four years’ jail

TITTER ye not… a home in Frankie Howerd’s former village is causing a stir with its phallic-shaped hedges.

The property in Cross, near Axbridge in Somerset, is owned by Peter Knife – but he insists the plants were there long before he moved in 20 years ago. In fact, locals refer to his 400-year-old home as ‘the willy house’. The topiary was spotted by walker Nigel Vile – and he shared A JAGUAR Land Rover manager who paralysed two sisters in a road-rage crash caught on their father’s dashcam was jailed yesterday for four and a half years.

Andrew Nay, 39, crashed a company 4x4 into the girls’ family car as he made a ‘ridiculous’ right-hand turn while chasing the driver of a Mazda he believed had earlier cut him up.

Yesterday judge Adrienne Lucking QC said Nay had displayed a ‘flagrant disregard for the rules of the road’ during a ‘prolonged piece of very bad driving.’

Nay admitted causing serious injury through dangerous driving, but claimed that the crash last October – which left Katrina Raiba, now aged six, and her sister Karlina, eight, paralysed from the waist down – was the result of a ‘momentary lapse of judgment’ as he turned across the path of the family’s car.

But Judge Lucking said the evidence of five other motorists, as well as the Raibas’ dashcam footage, showed his account to be ‘incredible and inconsistent’.

She said she would struggle to think of a more serious case of dangerous driving, and added: ‘No sentence I can pass will ever feel like enough for this family.’

The sisters’ parents Roberts and Renate, originally from Latvia, some pictures on Facebook where they have led to a few sniggers.

Mr Knife, 69, said he had never had any complaints about the plants, adding: ‘People ask how I keep my hedges so well-maintained. I wind them up and tell them I put Viagra in the roots.’

Comedian Howerd, right, lived for 20 years in Cross with boyfriend Dennis Heymer. He died in 1992 aged 75 and is buried in a nearby cemetery. Katrina, left, and sister Karlina suffered broken bones in the crash on the A509 outside Wellingborough, Northamptonshire.

Speaking after Nay, who is a qualified off-road instructor, was sentenced, Mr Raiba said: ‘It’s good he will go to prison, but it won’t change what’s happened or help my daughters to walk again.

‘I still don’t think he realises the huge damage he has caused. I can’t understand how a driving instructor could behave that way behind the wheel. It’s not a game – this has nearly destroyed my family.’

In a heartbreaking statement released by the couple after Nay’s conviction on Thursday, they told how the girls ask: ‘When will we start feeling our legs again?’

The couple, who did not attend court yesterday, added: ‘ They think it’s going to get better and it’s too hard to tell them.’

Prosecutor Matthew Howcliffe said the girls were making ‘good progress’ but added that the children will now face a ‘ lifetime of profound disability’.

The Raibas are now seeking damages from Nay, of Corby, Northamptonshire.

Marcus Kraehling-Smith, mitigating for Nay, who is a venue manager for Jaguar Land Rover, said his client’s actions had ‘altered the lives of four innocent people’ and that he was ‘truly remorseful’.

Mr Kraehling-Smith read out a letter from Nay, which said: ‘I am truly sorry for all the hurt, pain and devastation that I have caused to Mr Raiba, his wife and children. I wake up knowing what I have done and hate myself. I wish I could change things. I know these words do nothing to help but I am truly sorry for everything.’

Nay, who the court heard had been tailgating the woman Mazda driver in the lead-up to the crash, was also banned from the road for six years and three months.

Moment road-rage driver swerved into traffic and paralysed two girls for life