Mum jailed for 15 months after ploughing her BMW into pensioner’s mobility scooter at twice the speed limit
The pensioner suffered multiple injuries and was in hospital for more than five months after
A MOTHER who drove her BMW at nearly twice the speed limit into a pensioner on a mobility scooter has been jailed for 15 months.
Emma Small, 35, had only driven the courtesy car once before the crash and did not realise the speed she was going at.
The elderly man on the scooter, Raymond Hyde, was left with multiple injuries and was kept in hospital for more than five months.
He remembers seeing the blue car racing towards him as he crossed a road in Stockton on June 3 last year on his scooter, which has a top speed of 8mph.
The car, which was travelling at 57mph, in a 30mph zone, then hit him.
Richard Bennett, prosecuting at Teesside Crown Court, said: "He remembers being thrown to the floor.
"The scooter was knocked along the road at speed and destroyed. Numerous parts of the scooter were scattered along the road."
He was “very seriously injured” and taken to hospital in a “critical, life-threatening condition.”
He was eventually released from hospital on November 17, but now needs 24-hour care and the 75-year-old is entirely dependant on carers.
Raymond told the court in a personal statement he had lived alone for 40 years and led an "active and busy life".
He said: "The incident has changed my life beyond comprehension.
"I do not know the driver of the vehicle, nor do I wish to meet them. I believe they should not be allowed to drive for a long time."
Small, of Radford Close, Roseworth, who previously admitted causing serious injury by dangerous driving, was jailed for 15 months.
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Alex Bousfield, representing Small, said she was a mum of a 14-year-old boy who felt “absolutely terrible about what happened to Mr Hyde.”
Asking the judge to consider suspending any custodial sentence, he said: “Her work, when she was in work, was caring for people in the same sort of situation Mr Hyde is now in.
“She no longer feels able to carry on that work.”
He said: “She completely failed to realise the speed at which the car was travelling. It comes down to a complete lack of judgement on her part.
“It’s her driving that created the situation and she will have to live with that for the rest of her life.”
Jailing Small, the Recorder of Middlesbrough, Judge Simon Bourne-Arton QC, said he was taking into account her guilty plea, remorse and previous good character, but said there was “no justification” for suspending the sentence after an incident which “completely changed” Mr Hyde’s life.
He said: “From being independent, he now has full-time carers and the indignation and embarrassment of him not being able to go to the toilet independently.
“Maybe you were driving a car of a make you are unfamiliar with but you should easily have appreciated you were driving too fast.
“It is a tragedy for everybody - for Mr Hyde, for you and your family.”
But he added: “I cannot avoid, in my public duty, an immediate custodial sentence.”
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