A 21-YEAR-OLD man has been jailed after using ‘his vehicle as a weapon’ in a late-night hit-and-run in which his victim was dragged ten metres down the road with his arm locked in the wheel arch.
James Taylor’s actions on 17 June left the man – who filmed the whole incident on his mobile phone after suspecting Taylor was speeding – with extensive loss of skin on his forearms, chest, abdomen and thighs and a deep cut to his left elbow. He required stitches and treatment in hospital.
The victim was also forced to take a month off work and left unable to sleep because of the pain.
Taylor drove his grey Hyundai into the victim at a bus stop on Route du Nord in St John on 17 June last year, and then sped away from the incident without reporting it to police, the Royal Court heard yesterday.
Advocate Simon Crowder, prosecuting, told the court that the victim had been at the L’Auberge du Nord pub before walking to the nearby bus stop with a friend.
‘That evening the victim had heard and seen a number of vehicles driving past. Their engines were very loud and he believed they were driving in excess of the speed limit,’ said Advocate Crowder.
One of these, not Taylor’s, caused the victim’s friend to jump into the hedge as he ‘thought it was going to hit him’.
The victim decided to try to get the registration number of a second car, as he believed the driver was going over the speed limit, and began filming it with his mobile phone.
The court was played video footage that the victim had then filmed of Taylor from the bus stop.
Advocate Crowder said that the defendant ‘put his car on a noisy setting’ and pulled out of the car park, going into first and then second gear.
He added: ‘As the car approached, he stepped into the road. The vehicle’s headlights were on and the victim thought it was going very fast. He could hear the throttle was wide open.
‘The defendant saw him, slammed on the brakes, the front of the bonnet dipped and the car came to a stop, with a squealing sound from the brakes, right in front of the victim.’
The court heard that Taylor reversed and then put the car into a forward gear and the wheels could be heard to spin. The victim recalled standing on the road in front of the car, holding his phone in front of him, with the torch on.
Advocate Crowder said that the victim ‘tried to turn and shield himself but was hit and rolled onto the bonnet and off the side of the bonnet on the driver’s side’.
‘He remembers hitting the windscreen, which caused him to flip and land on his front and side,’ added Advocate Crowder. ‘The victim’s arm was trapped in the wheel arch.
He was unable to free it and was dragged for ten metres. It was then the wheels changed direction and in that way he was freed.’
The court heard that Taylor had been arrested two weeks before this incident and his car was found to have a defective tyre.
‘Chunks of the tyre had been worn off,’ said Advocate Crowder.
‘They were likely worn off by aggressive driving over a long period of time.’
The court heard that the victim had to go to hospital on 21 June, as he was unable to walk and was suffering from an ‘oozing wound’ on his leg.
After the incident, the court heard that Taylor ‘panicked’.
‘During the journey he pulled in at the Marks and Spencer fuel station, where he got out of the car and screamed, after which he drove to a yard at Geomarine in St John, where he spoke to his friend before heading towards Sion,’ the Crown Advocate said.
Advocate Simon Thomas, defending, said that Taylor described the incident as short and without any prior planning.
He said: ‘He acknowledges the gravity of the offence. It was a short but serious piece of driving. It was an incident of foolishness.
‘He acted impulsively but without any prior planning. He maintains that he didn’t mean to injure [the victim].
‘For someone who has had recent mental-health problems, custody has the prospect of taking him to a darker place.’
Deputy Bailiff Robert Macrae said: ‘That night you drove into a member of the public on the road.
You knocked them over, left them injured at the scene, let alone reported the accident.
‘In the footage we can see you accelerate hard. We can hear the wheels spinning as you drove into and hit him. He rolled off the bonnet and hit the windscreen.
‘The victim was trapped in the wheel arch and was dragged for ten metres. He could have been seriously injured.’
The Deputy Bailiff continued: ‘He [the victim] says he was unable to sleep for a month and was off work for a month. There are a number of activities that he is no longer able to continue with.
‘For an offence of this nature, only a custodial sentence can be justified,’ he said, adding that using a vehicle as a weapon should lead to a custodial sentence.’
He sentenced Taylor to 12 months in prison and disqualified him from driving for three years.
