Crash victim pans ‘lenient’ sentence
Alan Hinch, pictured in his hospital bed last year
A FARMER who was seriously injured in a head-on smash on a rural road has criticised the sentence handed out to the van driver who caused it.
Alan Hinch suffered multiple fractures to his right leg, hip, pelvis and lower spine as well as a collapsed lung in the crash on the B664 near Medbourne.
Graeme Blair (28), who admitted dangerous driving on September 5 last year, was sentenced at Leicester Crown Court on Monday to four months in prison - suspended for 12 months - fined £2,000 and banned from driving for 18 months.
But Mr Hinch (76), who had to sell his haulage business in the wake of the crash and still uses a wheelchair and crutches to get around while he undergoes physio, said he believes the sentence was too lenient.
He told the Mail: “I think he got off very lightly. A friend of mine went to the court and told me what happened. I couldn’t believe it.”
The court heard Blair, of Cedar Road, Kettering, had lost control of his vehicle while driving over a humpbacked bridge at about 60mph - too fast to safely negotiate it.
The van, belonging to Anglian Water, became airborne as Blair and collided with a Mr Hinch’s small van as well as a Peugeot which were travelling in the opposite direction.
Mr Hinch had to be cut out of the wreckage of his van and was airlifted to Coventry’s University Hospital in a critical condition, spending the next three days in a coma.
Blair assisted at the scene and co-operated with the police, the court heard.
In mitigation for Blair, Sarah O’Kane said her client had been driving for Anglian Water for seven years, had a clean licence and no previous convictions.
She said he made a ‘terrible misjudgement’ which has ‘weighed extremely heavily on him’ and was deeply sorry for the injuries caused to Mr Hinch.
Mr Hinch, who runs Paget Farm in Medbourne, said: “I still organise the farm but I can’t actually get out there so I do it from the house.
“I hope to get better and I keep trying each day. I could have been killed I suppose.”
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Wednesday 22 May 2013
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