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Taxi driver failed to tell medics he had run over drunken Nuneaton customer who later died
A Taxi driver who ran over a drunken Nuneaton man he had just taken home failed to tell paramedics what had actually happened. If he had done so, victim Ian Smith would have received treatment in time which probably would have saved his life, a judge has heard.
Following 52-year-old Mr Smith’s death, taxi driver Peter Southall was charged with manslaughter, which he denied. But on what was to have been the first day of his trial at the Crown Court in Leamington, Southall pleaded guilty to an alternative offence of causing death by careless driving.
Southall, 58, of Edinburgh Road, Camp Hill, Nuneaton, was sentenced to 21 weeks in prison suspended for 12 months, ordered to do 210 hours of unpaid work and banned from driving for two years.
Prosecutor Graham Reeds said that Southall, a taxi driver for Arrow Taxis in Nuneaton, had collected Mr Smith from the Royal Oak pub in October 2011. Regular customer Mr Smith was known by taxi controllers to be often drunk. Mr Smith got out at his home in Burnaby Close, Stockingford, as Southall began to turn his taxi around. As he drove away he commented over his radio to his controller about how drunk Mr Smith was.
Mr Reeds said: “Unknown to the defendant, but captured by a CCTV camera on a neighbour’s driveway, while he was manoeuvring Mr Smith fell over backwards into the road. "He hit the back of his head on the road surface and had been knocked out.” As Southall drove out at about 6mph he ran over the prone body, causing serious internal injuries – possibly because he was on his radio at the time.
When paramedics arrived, Southall said Mr Smith had fallen, but not that he had driven over him. He was taken to University Hospital where the court heard he was treated as a head injury case not a trauma patient. Mr Reeds explained: “That would have resulted in him going to theatre and in that time frame, there is a very good statistical chance that he would have been saved. As it was, Mr Smith’s injuries were not noticed.”
He later suffered a heart attack, when staff discovered he had suffered serious abdominal and pelvic injuries. Despite surgery, he later died in intensive care. Mr Reeds said had Southall been frank with paramedics, Mr Smith would have been handed over straight away to a trauma team ‘which would have given them a very good chance of saving his life.’
Giving evidence, Southall, an Arrow driver for 15 years after 17 years as a milkman, told the court he remembered his vehicle ‘lifting’ but claimed he did not realise he had driven over Mr Smith. But Judge Richard Griffith-Jones said: “It was irresponsible not to give a full history to the ambulance crew.”
Jonas Hankin, defending, who said Southall will lose his livelihood after losing his licence, argued it was not just his irresponsibility which led to Mr Smith’s tragic death, but ‘the very poor standard of care from start to finish by the West Midlands Ambulance Service and the local NHS Trust’.
Sentencing Southall, the judge told him he had had a duty to be “vigilant”, adding: “I accept you simply did not see him....you drove over his prone figure with catastrophic consequences.”
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