Malton crash: Man avoids jail after 'idiotic' driving caused girlfriend to break her back in four places
A man’s “idiotic” driving led to a crash which resulted in horrific injuries to his girlfriend whose dreams of becoming a jockey have now been jeopardised.
Harry Camp, 19, an apprentice engineer from Kirkbymoorside, put his foot to the metal after getting annoyed at his then girlfriend’s choice of music, York Crown Court heard.
Prosecutor Kelly Clarke said that Camp was driving a VW Golf and the named victim was in the front passenger seat as they travelled from York to Malton on August 14 last year.
After turning off the A64 at Castle Howard onto Amotherby Lane, the victim put on some music which Camp said was “making him feel angry”.
He stepped on the accelerator and began driving “particularly fast”, or, as his now-ex-girlfriend described it, “like an idiot”.
Further along the single-track, narrow road, a female motorist travelling in the opposite direction saw Camp’s Volkswagen speeding towards her.
“The narrow road prevented her from going anywhere and she anticipated (Camp) would pull into the passing place just ahead of her,” added Ms Clarke.
Despite there being “no room to do so”, Camp tried to drive around the woman’s vehicle and clipped the edge of the grass verge, causing his car to overturn.
Neither Camp nor the woman in the other vehicle was injured, but his girlfriend was knocked unconscious and “stuck upside down” in the upturned vehicle.
Camp was arrested at the scene and charged with causing serious injury by dangerous driving. He admitted the offence and appeared for sentence on Thursday (October 31).
In a statement read out by the prosecution, the victim, who is in her early 20s and from Old Maltongate, said she had “broken my back in four places and broke my neck in two places”, along with a small brain haemorrhage.
“This was one of the lowest moments of my life,” she added.
Defence barrister Nick Peacock said that Camp felt “great shame” for what he had done and the relationship was now over.
Camp was currently on an apprentice mechanical-engineering course and was “petrified” of going to prison.
Mr Peacock cited glowing character references which “paint him as an industrious, hard-working young man, someone for whom this sort of behaviour is completely at odds with the way he normally conducts himself”.
Judge Sean Morris told Camp: “This court has to deal with young men driving too fast time and time again…and the consequences can be enormous.
“The lady coming in the opposite direction could have been dead. Your former girlfriend could have been paraplegic: that is what happens when teenagers and young men drive their hot hatches like idiots.
“Fortunately, nobody died, but (the victim) has had a shocking time.”
However, the judge noted that Camp had never been in trouble before, had a clean driving licence, had shown “obvious remorse” and had “good prospects ahead of you as an apprentice”.
He added: “It’s quite clear that this was a one-off; it’s quite clear you are deeply, deeply ashamed and remorseful.”
Mr Morris said for those reasons he could suspend the inevitable jail sentence.
Camp, of Main Street, Normanby, received a 14-month jail sentence but this was suspended for a year.
He was ordered to carry out 280 hours of unpaid work and banned from driving for two years.