A mum has spoken of her "disgust" after the hit-and-run drug driver who left her son with catastrophic injuries was spared jail.
Oliver Davies, 10, was flung 30 feet into the air when Samuel Congreve, 24, smashed into him with his BMW.
The youngster, from Gwent, Wales suffered a punctured lung, multiple fractures including to his spine and pelvis, and a lacerated spleen.
Oliver spent nine days in the hospital and was left unable to play football with his friends or walk upstairs.
The now 11-year-old suffers from recurring nightmares after the crash.
Congreve, from Caerphilly, pleaded guilty to driving without due care and attention, driving with cannabis in his blood, and failing to stop after an accident causing personal injury.
The 24-year-old was given a four-month suspended sentence and a three-month curfew.
Amy, Oliver's mum, said the family are let down by the "disgusting" sentence.
She said: "It was disgusting, I walked out as soon as the judge said suspended.
"We behaved obviously but I wish I said more now. I have never shaken so much in my life, I was angry.
"All we wanted was a sentence, just something to get us a bit of closure, that he’s actually being punished. I think to myself now I can go out, drink driver, knock a kid over, flee the scene and get away with it.
"Oliver was devastated, he burst out crying when we came through the door. He was gutted."
Oliver had been crossing the road when Congreve came "out of nowhere" and hit him on June 27, 2021, Newport Magistrates’ Court heard.
Amy said: "Olly looked at the last minute and tried running but it was too late.
"He was thrown 30ft into the air onto the other side of the road and this car drove off. He drove off without stopping."
Amy's husband ran to the scene after he was told what happened.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, Amy said: "Our initial thoughts at this point were, was he still alive?
"How bad were his injuries and would he still be the same Oliver we always knew and loved?
"The feeling that came over us both is hard to put into words, a feeling of sickness and absolute dread in the pit of your stomach that no parent should ever feel.
"My worst nightmare has always been to receive that phone call that one of our children had been knocked over and to have it happen is inconceivable.
"When we arrived on the scene to see our beautiful boy, seeing his body battered and broken, grazed from head to toe, his shoulder completely deformed and out of position and screaming in pain was horrific to see.
"This individual who didn’t even have the basic human nature to stop, not even knowing if he had killed our boy, a person not an object or even an animal but our son, a brother and a grandson, a human being."
She went on: "I’m reluctant to even allow our kids out with their friends, about them even leaving our side, through no fault of their own but because of what happened to our boy at a pedestrian crossing.
"I even worry, myself, about knocking a child over and fear it every time I drive. Looking to the future we don’t know how it will affect Oliver both physically and mentally.
"He has ongoing problems with his back, which again we are currently awaiting results for.
"Will this affect his choice of a job he can do later in life? Will Olly be able to play sports again? Will the nightmares return? These are things we won’t know yet.’"
Congreve was also banned from driving for two years.
