Guilty: Patient who pushed woman in path of lorry

Paranoid schizophrenic John Touray, 52, randomly shoved Lauren Hickson, 23, in the back forcing her into the path of an oncoming lorry.

She was on her way back from her lunch break to her job at a solicitors firm when the incident occurred on the A63 on June 6 this year.

The lorry had just set off from traffic lights and was travelling between 5-10mph when Touray, who was a complete stranger to Miss Hickson, ran up behind her and pushed her as she chatted to her mother on her mobile phone.

The court heard she fell in a gap between the lorry and its trailer and was lucky the driver stopped in time before the wheels ran over her. She suffered cuts and bruises.

Touray, who had been living at the Homeless And Rootless Project in East Hull, was ruled unfit to plead to a charge of attempted murder at Hull Crown Court.

But a jury ruled he committed the act after a short trial.

Giving evidence, Miss Hickson said she felt like she had been ‘mugged’ as Touray pushed her from behind with force.

“I was on the phone to my mum walking back to my offices, when I felt a big push from behind me,” she said.

“I thought I was being mugged. I was pushed with some force towards the back of my right shoulder and fell straight into the left hand side of the lorry.

“I just heard a bang and saw blood and heard screaming. My legs went to jelly and I fainted.

“After that, everything is a bit of a blur. I heard someone shouting ‘He pushed her, he pushed her’. I was really upset and spent five hours in hospital before being allowed home.”

Judge Jeremy Richardson QC sentenced Touray to an indefinite hospital order in a secure hospital. He said: “Mercifully, the lorry was travelling at a slow speed and Miss Hickson fortunately missed the heavy wheels of the vehicle.

“Had there been a split second difference, I have little doubt she would have been killed or grievously injured.

“It was only her good fortune that she landed where she did on the side of the vehicle and that events turned out the way they did.

“It might be he [Touray] has to spend the remainder of his life in a mental health hospital.

“A young woman standing at a crossing was, for no reason whatsoever, pushed towards a moving articulated lorry. He poses a considerable danger. I cannot envisage when it will ever be safe to release him.”

After the case, Detective Sergeant Craig Nicholson said: “Miss Hickson wishes to thank the people who came to her aid and helped detain the defendant.”