Driver was ‘off his head’ on drugs when he ploughed into teenager, killing pet dog
A DRUG driver has been jailed for two years after he went onto a pavement and crashed into a 17-year-old, seriously injuring the teenager and killing the pet dog he’d been walking at the time.
Before the accident, Andrew Pittman had stayed up until 5am with a friend drinking and taking cocaine and diazepam, and was taking prescribed medication for schizophrenia.
“For reasons better known to him, he then went to his car and got into it,” said Stuart Lody, prosecuting at Nottingham Crown Court.
It was 6.50am on September 22 this year when he was seen driving forward into a fence, damaging it, and reversing into another fence and driving off.
He drove around a quiet residential area in Bingham before encountering the teenager who was walking the family’s terrier before starting his first day of his third year of a course.
“He was simply walking the dog along Carnarvon Place,” explained Mr Lody. “The defendant came along the road, lost control of the car, hit the kerb and mounted the pavement.”
He struck the teenager. The femur in his left leg snapped, requiring extensive surgery to fit steel plates and rods. His left knee cap was dislocated and skin and tissue to the calf were nearly sliced off, said Mr Lody.
There was significant damage to ligaments. Skin grafts and operations are continuing. He had a minor fracture to the right femur.
The teenager was described as having a “very hard year indeed”, said Mr
Lody.
After the accident, police were called and traced the car to a block of flats where the defendant lives.
Pittman, 38, of Carnarvon Close, Bingham, had parked his car and hit a wall.
He was in a flat above his own where officers forced entry after the door was barricaded. The defendant was seen sprawled on a sofa and completely intoxicated through the influence of drugs.
At court, Judge James Sampson told him: “To use the vernacular, which we will all understand, you were off your head.”
He sentenced him to two years for causing serious injury by dangerous driving, eight months concurrently for driving whilst unfit through drugs, one month concurrently for failing to stop after an accident. There was no separate penalty for causing criminal damage. His driving ban was for four years.
The judge said Pittman had four convictions for eight offences including a failing to stop after an accident and failing to report an accident and, more recently, an offence of battery.
Stefan Fox, mitigating, said Pittman - who pleaded guilty - said he had been an engineer at a power station. He had been informed, irrespective of what happened during his sentencing, that his employment would be terminated.
Mr Fox said: “This has been, for Mr Pittman, the wake-up call of all wakeup calls. It is time for him to get the help that he desperately needs.”
He said Pittman is “truly sorry for the harm that he has caused and the harm and impact that will continue long into the future”.