Appeal court upholds reckless driving charge
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• A 27-month jail sentence on a goods vehicle driver whose faulty coupling of a trailer caused a pedestrian's death has been upheld by the Appeal Court.
Although three judges accepted that the 24-year-old Stepehn Walton was grief stricken over the death of Patricia Nesbitt on the outskirts of Newcastle, they ruled that his reckless behaviour had resulted in a "needless and horrific death".
Walton, of Monks Avenue, Whitley Bay, was jailed at Newcastle Crown Court last August for causing death by dangerous driving.
Mr Justice Butterfield, sitting in London with Lord Justice Hobhouse and Mr Justice Laws, upheld the 27-month sentence but halved the five-year driving ban also imposed upon Walton. There had been no question that he had been driving badly before the accident on 6 December 1994, said the judge. He earlier described how Mrs Nesbitt was splashed with molten tar after the trailer struck her and a wall collapsed on her. The driver admitted that he knew the trailer had not been properly secured and accepted full responsibility.
Mr Justice Butterfield said the court accepted that Walton had been had been consumed with remorse over the tragedy, and no sentence could compensate for the loss of Mrs Nesbitt's life.
The driver's contrition was real but the jail term was not wrong in principle or excessive, he said.