Judge calls crash driver stupid and feckless

A MOTORIST involved in a collision while racing a friend was described by a judge yesterday as a "stupid feckless young man."

Leeds Crown Court heard a couple were injured when they were suddenly confronted on their side of the road by the 17-year-old driver whom Thomas Henderson Brookes was racing.

He was apparently trying to overtake Brookes on a bend on the A58 Wetherby Road, near Collingham on the evening of July 3 last year and lost control of his Ford Fiesta.

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Duncan Ritchie said Andrew Limbert who was driving his partner Monica Kirk desperately steered to the side but could not avoid a collision with the oncoming car and their vehicle ended up in a ditch.

He suffered back and neck injuries while she has continuing pain to her legs.

Brookes' Renault Clio had also struck the Fiesta and smashed through a fence, coming to rest at a 45 degree angle between trees. Witnesses described having seen the pair apparently racing earlier some two miles away.

Brookes told officers they had been in Shadwell and decided to go to Wetherby for a pizza and denied overtaking unless it was safe. He was on bail at the time for assisting an offender by driving someone away from a robbery a few days earlier.

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Mr Ritchie said the other driver was sentenced to a referral order at the youth court.

Brookes, 19 of Main Street, Shadwell, Leeds, admitted dangerous driving and was given an 18 months community order with supervision, 200 hours unpaid work and a condition he attend the Responsible Road User Group Driving Course. He was also disqualified from driving for two and a half years.

Judge Kerry Macgill said it was a miracle nobody was killed by their driving but he felt his sentencing powers were constrained by the situation since.

He said Brookes was sentenced to eight months in a young offender institution in November on the charge of assisting an offender and had the court been aware of the pending driving offence he would have almost certainly received a consecutive sentence.

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However, since his release in January he had reverted to his previous good character, no longer drinking or using cannabis and returning to work. He urged lawyers to tell courts when other cases were outstanding so a proper assessment for sentence could be made.