Crash driver blames his flip flops
HE FLED SCENE AFTER LEAVING VICTIM SERIOUSLY INJURED
A DRIVER blamed adjusting his flip flops and “messing about with his stereo” for allowing his car to mount a pavement in Derby city centre and crash into a pedestrian.
A witness said he saw Lee Kilpatrick’s car “jerk to the side” before it ploughed into the back of a man who was wearing a hi-vis jacket while walking back to work with a colleague from lunch.
Derby Crown Court heard how medics initially believed the injuries the victim, then aged 27, received were potentially life-threatening.
He spent nine days in hospital having suffered a brain haemorrhage and a fracture to his breast bone.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, he told how he can no longer manage heavy lifting and has had to give up manual work as a result.
The sentencing hearing was told how the defendant fled the scene before handing himself into the police the following day.
Handing 39-year-old Kilpatrick a 16-month jail sentence, Judge Nirmal Shant QC said: “You mounted a kerb and struck a pedestrian who, along with a second man, was wearing a hivis jacket.
“Your explanation to the police was that you were wearing flip flops and were adjusting these and changing your stereo and were unable to see what was going on through your windscreen. Anyone that mounts the pavement in this way creates an obvious risk of danger to pedestrians.”
Sarah Slater, prosecuting, said the collision happened outside the Parksafe car park in Bold Lane at around 1pm on Tuesday, August 20, 2019.
She said a driver who was heading towards the city centre saw a Mercedes C180 being driven by the defendant jerk, mount the pavement and knock down the victim before the driver left the scene.
Miss Slater said: “He (the witness) pulled over in his Volvo to help the man who was surrounded by people.
“The victim was taken to hospital with a head injury and a fracture to his breast bone.
“He was initially assessed as having suffered potentially life-threatening injuries so was transferred to the neurological unit at the Queen’s Medical Centre. He was required to stay there for nine days after the collision.
“There was a media appeal and the defendant handed himself in the following day.
“He gave an explanation that he was wearing flip flops and was messing about with or changing his stereo and did not know he had hit anyone.”
Kilpatrick, of Surrey Crescent, West Bromwich, near Birmingham, pleaded guilty to causing serious injury through dangerous driving and failing to stop following an accident.
Balvinder Bhatti, mitigating, said her client works as a scaffolder, is dyslexic and, at the time of the collision, was on a methadone script to try to manage his drug use.
As well as the prison term, Judge Shant disqualified Kilpatrick from driving for two years and eight months.