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Bolton Crown Court (CC BY-SA 3.0/Rept0n1x/Wikimedia Commons)Hit-and-run driver ran red light "at speed" and hit 10-year-old cyclist, avoids jail
A hit-and-run driver who jumped a red light "at speed" in his Audi A4 — colliding with a schoolgirl cycling across the junction on her way home — before fleeing the scene and abandoning his car without helping the injured child, has avoided jail.
Layla Shepard was 10 at the time of the collision which happened at around 6.49pm on Saturday 16 October 2021 on the Wigan Road in Deane, Greater Manchester, and was left with a fractured cheekbone, a broken nose, as well as an injury to her leg that needed surgery.
The girl's statement said the incident has left her "overwhelmed" and diagnosed with PTSD. She has not been able to ride her bike since the collision and "regularly" suffers flashbacks that "keep me up at night".
At Bolton Crown Court, having pleaded guilty to causing serious injury by careless driving and failing to stop after an incident, Farhan Musaji was sentenced to a 12-month community order and must complete 200 hours of unpaid work, ordered to pay £900 compensation to his victim, a £400 fine and £300 in costs. The 26-year-old is also banned from driving for a year.
The offence of causing serious injury by careless driving was introduced in June 2022, in response to a government consultation on driving offences and penalties launched in 2016. At a crown court, as in this case, the conviction has a maximum penalty of two years in prison, while at a magistrates' court the maximum sentence is one year.
A witness account was heard in court, Mr Downey explaining how he had emerged from a chip shop on the parade of shops next to where the hit-and-run occurred, when the 10-year-old "flew in the air before landing a short distance down the road".
Anna Bond, prosecuting, said: "She arrived at the puffin crossing and started the ride over to the other side of junction.
"Mr Downey had just emerged from a chip shop nearby and went to the traffic lights on the other side of the crossing. He saw the defendant's car come through the red lights at speed and hit Layla off her bike.
"Layla hit the windscreen of the car and flew in the air before landing a short distance down the road going towards Wigan town centre. Instead of stopping, the defendant drove on and abandoned the car a short time after. The police later discovered there was no registration plate on the car.
"As a result of the collision, Layla was left with significant swelling and a fracture to her knee, which required a brace. She was later discharged from hospital on October 22.
"Greater Manchester Police received a radio transmission about the collision and attended the defendant's address. The defendant rang his father to tell him about the collision and he then confirmed this to the officers when they arrived. However, the defendant was not present at the address at that time.
"On October 17, the defendant and his father attended Bolton police station for interview. He later returned on October 20 with his solicitor."
"Absolutely disgraceful"
The judge, Elliot Knopf, said Musaji had "ran off" rather than "turning back and seeking to provide assistance and comfort to the girl with whom you had collided and who had been injured significantly by your actions".
Calling his actions "absolutely disgraceful", the judge then accepted that the defendant feels "genuine remorse" and is a "hard-working young man" and people "speak highly of your ability and honesty", sparing him jail.
Musaji had one previous caution for cannabis possession in 2022 and in his defence Peter Malone said he could "not stress this enough" how much remorse his client feels "and his regret for coming before you today".
"This whole case is unfortunate, and he realises he is wholly to blame for it," Malone said. "He just did not see that individual when he was driving. What happened next was sheer panic, and he did drive off and went home to his father where they both contacted the police.
"There has been no repetition of this kind of behaviour since, he has kept out of trouble. He has not driven since the incident and now relies on public transport to get to the pharmacy where he works. He is a pharmacy technician, meaning he assists the lead pharmacist to gather medication and discusses medication with customers.
"Since he was 16 he has been working his way up with this pharmacy in Bolton. He sends his sincerest apology to Layla and her family and hopes she can forgive him."
Musaji had been charged with causing injury by dangerous driving but the charge was changed to careless driving. He faced up to two years in prison, but was spared a custodial sentence.
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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53 comments
He should have been jailed on the basis of leaving the scene. Making it always a jail sentence even if it is later proven to be an accident might deter drivers and reduce the number of hit and runs.
Yet another case where the law seems to be an ass. Still, the comprehensive review of road laws will be out any day now, so that will sort things out good and proper.
This case highlights a whole load of problems with the judicial system and driving in this country.
The sentence "He just did not see that individual when he was driving" is just unacceptable. That should be a lifetime ban. It's a terrible excuse at any time, but to offer it up in court when you've gone through a red light and nearly killed a child?!
How many of us whilst riding have had to deal with "SMIDSY"?
If you can't be bothered to even look, you aren't safe enough to be let out of your house, never mind in charge of a vehicle.
And don't get me started on lenient sentences, the likelihood he will pay any attention to the ban, why it wasn't dangerous driving.
If you want to kill someone, get in your car.
Exactly - admitting that is an admission of guilt, not a mitigating circumstance, IMO.
They seem to have completely ignored the red light too..l
You just need to look at a nearly identical situation involving a cyclist and a pedestrian. Such as the case of Philip Douglas Benwell in December 2013.
Ran a red light on his bike at speed, collided with 9 year old pedestrian, leaving them with serious injuries, they fled the scene.
It will come as no shock to anyone that the cyclist was jailed. IMHO it was a paltry 12 months jail term.... but they found themselves in jail.
That's an important find that illustrates the gulf between different road users.
I presume the police could not prove that he was responsible for removing the plates from the car otherwise surely this was in attempting to pervert the course of justice territory. Still a pathetic judicial response to what should be treated as a serious crime against the person and greater society. The child will carry a lifelong burdon, so should the scrote responsible.
Well, as long as you appear to be sorry and people say nice things about you, punishment s a consequence of your actions obviously doesn't apply.
Leaving the scene, abandoning the car and removing the plates provides an insight into a mindset intent on avoiding consequences- in stark contrast to what seems like a coached performance in court.
on a minor note, why is someone with a cannabis conviction able to work in a pharmacy.
I know very few younger people who have not at their own admission used illegal drugs at sometime in their youth, but for the inconsistencies of drug law enforcement, our country would have hospitals without medical and nursing staff, law courts without lawyers and severely depleted Houses of Parliament if such a rule was adopted!
sounds good to me!
If you are a registered healthcare professional, you'd likely be struck off the register for a drug related conviction.
I doubt it, the Nursing and Midwifery Council states with regard to convictions:
That doesn't sound as though somebody cautioned for having a spliff in the back garden is going to be struck off. In the list of "serious offences" which will automatically trigger disciplinary procedures it says "serious drug offences" which would seem to imply trafficking or selling, not possession of small amounts of cannabis for personal use. A quick Google for relevant cases only turns up doctors and nurses struck off for drug offences if they were convicted of supplying illegal drugs to their patients or using illegal drugs at work; there are quite a few examples of doctors only being given warnings or short suspensions after being convicted of drug possession in private life.
Not necessarily, there are many people working in the harm reduction and addiction field that are former consumers of drugs, and have convictions.
Sounds like relevant experience to me, though probably more so if he was caught dealing - handling of money and precise weighing of goods is exactly the kind of skills you'd want for a pharmacy assistant.
The major problem with judges behaving like this is that actually creates an incentive for drivers to leave the scene if they're intoxicated or have incriminating material in their vehicle. The way to shut down the loophole is to not give scene leavers the benefit of the doubt and instead assume that they were intoxicated as they didn't take the opportunity to demonstrate that they weren't by engaging with the police at the time. Thus the penalty for leaving the scene should be greater than the maximum penalty for DUI - it'd be better for everyone if drunk drivers at least tried to phone for help for their victims and the police don't have to waste time chasing them down.
Absolutely, in many states in the US and also in Canada any driver leaving the scene of an incident is automatically assumed to have been DUI and punished for that on top of the punishment for leaving the scene and any punishment for responsibility in the incident.
I've told the story before on here but a cousin of mine was knocked down by a speeding driver on a zebra on the Kings Road twenty-odd years ago, the driver left the scene and returned ten minutes later having parked his car at his house round the corner, telling the police he was very sorry, he had panicked. He failed the breathalyser but explained that he had had several swigs of whisky when he had got home to calm his nerves and, unbelievably, he didn't even have to defend that in court, he was only charged with careless driving for which he got a few hundred pounds in fines and costs and six points on his licence. My cousin very nearly died, was in a coma for more than three months, and is still suffering severe physical consequences.
I don't think the punishment for leaving the scene of a collision should be high on the basis of assuming intoxication (sounds a lot like "guilty until proven innocent" to me) but rather because leaving the scene of a collision is such an abhorrent thing to do.
Regardless of whether you cause a collision or not (and whether due to your own ignorance, danger or intoxication or not), fleeing the scene of an accident and not checking that a fellow human being is alive or dead should be treated as demonstration of refusal to be a citizen of a civilised society.
Presumably you agree with the law that says that refusing to submit to a drug or alcohol test is treated in the same way as if you failed said test? Someone leaving the scene of an incident is, de facto, refusing to be tested and so should face the consequences of that.
Why on earth would you 'presume' that based on what I said above?
In any case, it isn't treated the same. Failing to provide a sample is a different offence.
The penalties for failure to provide are absolutely identical to those for drink driving: mandatory minimum 12 month ban (up to 60 months possible), fine of up to £5000 and/or maximum six months' jail.
They are not only different offences but they have different sentencing guidelines. You are not prosecuted for failure to provide a sample because you are guilty of drink driving. They are different offences.
Admit when you are wrong.
They are not only different offences but they have different sentencing guidelines. You are not prosecuted for failure to provide a sample because you are guilty of drink driving. They are different offences.
No only that but the £5000 limit has not been in place for the last 8 years. Do keep up Rendel.
Admit when you are wrong.
Suggest you'd better tell the Sentencing Council that then, as their guidelines for drink driving:
https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/magistrates-court/item/unf...
are identical to those for failure to provide:
https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/magistrates-court/item/fai...
Just to make it really easy for you, here are the respective tables for sentencing from those pages. Do tell me where you can spot the differences.
So you've correctly determined that there are separate guidelines for the different offences. Good boy. That's because they're different offences. You're getting there. We're getting closer to the apology, I can feel it.
However, the sentencing guidelines are not the same.
https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/magistrates-court/item/exc...
Note that providing a specimen determines a section 5 offence, not a section 4 offence. Your reference to section 4 guidelines is irrelevant.
Agree. However this would then need a careful - and ongoing - balancing of the punishments in each case. Otherwise you lessen but don't remove the "perverse incentive".
Yes - not so much assuming that they are intoxicated, but the punishment needs to be set higher than being intoxicated to avoid creating an incentive for them to scarper. Currently, if you're intoxicated and drive into someone, then you'll stand to have a smaller punishment if you run away as you can then claim that you had a few drinks to steady your nerves afterwards, but were sober at the time.
You could have something like a 'failed to demonstrate fitness to drive at time of incident' which could cover a whole range of potential sins. Implemented as a multiplyer on any sentence handed down.
This would cover the whole 'I went home and had a few whiskies to calm my nerves' angle.
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