New rules are set to tighten the penalties on people who kill or seriously injure on the UK’s roads.
Many victims have complained about the sentences handed to dangerous drivers in the past. However, new legislation coming into force today means people who kill someone through dangerous driving could now be handed a life sentence. That will also apply to careless drivers who kill someone on the roads while under the influence of drink and drugs.
A new offence of causing serious injury by careless driving is also set to be enforced from today.
READ MORE: Faces of nine people jailed in Liverpool this week
Sadly, there have been a number of cases in our region in the past few years which have seen innocent victims’ lives changed because of injuries inflicted by dangerous or careless drivers.
Here are seven dangerous drivers who ended up behind bars.
Kevin Bernard
A speeding driver who ruined a teenager's life in a horror smash was finally put behind bars after spending months on the run.
Kevin Bernard sped in a black Audi S3 along Southport Road in Bootle at 86mph - nearly three times the road's 30mph limit. Lee Baxter meanwhile was heading to his 19th birthday party at his mum's house with two friends in his blue Ford Fiesta.
Bernard hit the Fiesta, inflicting multiple injuries including brain damage on the teen, who was left fighting for his life in a coma. Mr Baxter's mum refused to turn off his life support machine - despite the advice of doctors - and the next day he started to recover.
But the now 22-year-old "had to learn how to breathe, talk, walk and eat" again and his personality was dramatically altered. Bernard, 44, denied causing serious injury by dangerous driving in the horrific crash, late on Saturday, June 16, 2018.
Yet he disappeared in December 2020 and failed to attend his trial last May, when he was found guilty, or his sentencing that July. Bernard was handed six years in prison in his absence, when a judge also sentenced him for a series of driving related frauds. He was finally arrested and is now serving his sentence.
Thomas Henwood
A driver who was racing a friend to Tesco ploughed into his car and left one of his passengers with serious head injuries.
Thomas Henwood, 21, was going well over the speed limit on Southport’s Sussex Road when he botched an attempt to overtake another car and crashed into it, causing his car to flip over. The soft top of his Mazda MX5 convertible crumpled inwards during the crash, leaving friend Harrison Povey, who was in the passenger seat, with a head injury that required 47 staples to be inserted into his skull.
Sarah Holt, prosecuting, said Henwood, Mr Povey and another friend were travelling in two cars to Tesco. However, as Henwood’s friend tried to turn Henwood accelerated into his car causing his own soft top vehicle to flip over. Mr Povey was a passenger and the impact caused severe injuries to his head.
Henwood, of Aintree Lane, was jailed for 20 months after admitting causing serious injury by dangerous driving.
Craig Nightingale
A driver high on cocaine left a cyclist fighting for his life after a crash in Warrington.
Craig Nightingale was jailed after he hit the cyclist from behind while travelling around 40mph, throwing the man into the air and leaving him fighting for his life in hospital.
Nightingale appeared at Liverpool Crown Court in May and pleaded guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving, two counts of drug driving and possession of a knife in a public place. The court heard how the 43-year-old of Kingsdown Road, Abram, was involved in two crashes on May 21 2020.
Nightingale, driving a blue/grey BMW 118, first drove into a wall at McColls Store on Lovely Lane, Warrington at 6.18am. He failed to stop and made off from the scene and just 15 minutes later hit a cyclist on Winwick Road.
Witnesses at the scene reported the cyclist was highly visible wearing a high-vis vest and a blue backpack. Nightingale, under the influence of cocaine and benzoylecgonine, failed to react and hit the cyclist from behind while driving at around 40mph.
The cyclist, a 45-year-old local man, was thrown into the air and taken to hospital with a number of injuries including internal bleeding, a broken leg, a broken ankle an a fractured neck. Nightingale was arrested at the scene on suspicion of drug driving after failing a roadside test.
He was jailed for for three years and 10 months.
Kevin Wall
A dad battered one motorcyclist before revving his engine and driving over another’s leg.
Kevin Wall was trying to get to his heavily pregnant wife when he got stuck behind two motorbikes in Liverpool city centre on January 21, 2019. When one of them stalled in front of him, the 41 year old got out of the car and punched him multiple times in the head.
Then, while trying to drive away he hit the second motorcyclist who rolled over his bonnet and landed on the floor before Wall’s car went over his leg. Prosecutors told the court Wall, who was driving to be with his pregnant partner as he thought she was in labour, flew into a rage after one of the riders stalled in front of him before driving over him.
Wall, of Pennsylvania Avenue, was jailed for 14 months after pleading guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving and assault.
Deborah McGovern
A little girl was left in a coma after a woman ran through a red light almost 20 miles over the speed limit, while talking on the phone.
Deborah McGovern was travelling at 58 miles per hour in a 40 miles per hour zone when her Land Rover smashed into a car carrying a mother and her child at the crossroads between Northway and Westway in Maghull.
The mother of four and successful dental therapist was jailed for 16 months today after the accident left the girl, who was seven at the time, with life changing injuries. Months later, she still suffered from headaches, blurred vision and other symptoms.
McGovern's Land Rover ploughed into the side of the Mercedes where the girl was sitting shortly after 10.30pm on October 27 last year, sending both the cars spinning onto the other side of the road. Prosecuting, Neil Bisarya said investigations found McGovern, of Gaw Hill View, Aughton, was travelling almost 20 miles per hour above the speed limit in the moments before the crash and failed to see the red light as she approached the junction.
The court heard one of the six sets of traffic lights was not working but the others were all functioning properly and had been showing red for 14 seconds before 51-year-old McGovern speeded through them and hit the other car.
Elliot Watson
Two men chugged vodka and inhaled laughing gas before one of them drover a car into a teenager taking his little brother to the corner shop.
Dylan Fryer was in a coma for 11 days after Elliot Watson drove a Vauxhall Astra into the 18-year-old on Battersby Lane in Warrington in October. Watson and his passenger, Barclay Redford, spent the immediate aftermath of the crash trying to avoid justice while Mr Fryers' parents watched their son fight for his life.
Liverpool Crown Court heard the two men had been drinking vodka and had bought laughing gas in the run up to the accident on the evening on October 29 last year. Watson then drove the car at high speed as Mr Fryer was going to cross the road. His little brother was able to get out of the way of the vehicle but the 18-year-old was thrown over the top of the car and left with catastrophic injuries, including a collapsed lung, multiple skull fractures and eight broken ribs.
Most seriously, he suffered from a "shaken brain", an extremely serious form of injury that can cause bruising and damage to the brain, and spent eleven days in a coma. The long term outlook for Mr Fryer's health is unclear and his mother told the court the accident continues to have a profound impact on the physical and mental health of both her sons.
Redford, of Makin Street, Walton, was sentenced to ten months at a young offenders' institution after pleading guilty to aggravated vehicle taking. Watson, 36, of Smith Street, Warrington, was jailed for 44 months for causing serious injury by dangerous driving, driving while disqualified, aggravated vehicle taking and failing to both stop and report an accident.
Lewis Lally
A man riding an e-bike fled to France after ploughing into a six-year-old girl, and leaving his victim seriously injured in the street.
Lewis Lally, 24, had a suspended prison sentence hanging over him when he drove "at full pelt" into a six-year-old girl on Windsor Road, Tuebrook, on March 4 this year. Harrowing footage of the crash was played at Liverpool Crown Court on Tuesday, June 14, which showed the child get hit by the e-bike and lifted into the air by the force of the impact.
After the incident, Lally left the UK and travelled through France to Barcelona, though he was later arrested in Widnes. He was sentenced to two years three months for the offence and his suspended sentence were activated to run consecutively. He also banned him from driving for three years.
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