Taxi driver left student with serious head injuries after dragging her along the road as she clung to his cab windowThe court was told that Karamat Ali sensed 'trouble' so locked his doors and drove away, expecting the 22-year-old to let goA black cab driver has been jailed after he sped away with a woman clinging to the window of a vehicle, leaving her with life-threatening injuries.
Karamat Ali sensed ‘trouble’ when a 22-year-old politics student stepped backwards in front of his hackney carriage after a night out drinking, so he locked the doors and refused to take her, Manchester Crown Court heard.
She then grabbed hold of the lowered front passenger side window, but the Stockport 56-year-old put his foot down and sped off. The woman was dragged 57 yards down the road before falling off and suffering a severe head injury, prosecutor Michael Morley said.
Ali left the scene and made no attempt to report the accident. Now the cabbie, of Craig Road, Heaton Mersey, has been jailed for 18 months after admitting causing serious injury by dangerous driving and failing to report an accident.
The incident only lasted around five to ten seconds, at 4.37am on September 20 last year, at Chester Street, off Oxford Road, and was witnessed by passers-by.
Umar Ali described the victim being ‘dragged along’ after the cab accelerated ‘really quickly’ while clinging to the window. Mr Ali said at one point her legs were ‘lifted off the floor’.
Another witness, Paul Stakes, said he saw a woman shouting at the driver as she held onto the cab, and thought it was ‘some kind of student prank’ until she fell off in an ‘horrific’ way.
Following his arrest, Ali said he was aware the victim had been clinging to the vehicle, but said driving off in the way he had was routinely done by taxi drivers who didn’t want drunk fares.
Prosecutor Michael Morley said: “Whatever the state of this young lady’s inebriation, she wasn’t acting unlawfully - the responsibility lies with he who was in control of the vehicle.”
The victim, who had been a ‘high-flying’ post-graduate student, was taken to hospital in a ‘very poorly state’.
She had suffered a brain injury so severe that a piece of her skull had to be removed. She has lost her sense of smell and at one stage doctors feared paralysis.
However, although her functioning remains impaired, she has made enough of a recovery to resume studying a masters at Manchester University, the court heard.
Paul Prior, defending, said despite being disabled by childhood polio, Ali was a hardworking family man who volunteered with the homeless, had not had an accident in 25 years, and had an unblemished 12 years as a cabbie until that morning.
Describing the father-of-four as ‘profoundly sorry’, Mr Prior appealed for a community punishment, adding: “I do not suggest for a moment (the victim) had contributed to this, but it is Mr Ali’s previous bad experiences with individuals early in the morning which gave him an antennae to when people might be trouble.
"If he could turn the clock back he would. His perception was that she would let go without any difficulty, tragically she did not. He made an awful, impulsive decision.”
Sentencing, Judge Martin Rudland said he had no doubt about the situations cab drivers faced, but added that ‘no-one was criticising’ the victim’s behaviour.
Jailing Ali, he told him: “You locked the door, she clearly didn’t want you to leave, and put her hands over the glass on the top of the window. You clearly wanted this matter bringing to an end immediately and so you took the conscious decision, and it was a deliberate decision, to drive away, knowing she was connected to your vehicle.
“In similar circumstances she would have let go, remained standing and you would have sped off to find customers more to your liking and nothing more would have occurred.
"Sadly that is not what happened, possibly to do with her inebriation, the structure of the vehicle, or any ongoing attempts she was making to communicate, she hung on, fell to the floor and injured herself very badly indeed.
“You didn’t contemplate it happening but you had here a risk of it happening and it did. I can’t allow you to walk away from this.”
Pc Paul Hailwood of the GMP Serious Collision Investigation Unit said: “Karamat Ali’s actions that morning were extremely dangerous and left a woman with life changing injuries, which require extensive treatment.
“It is almost unbelievable that not only did he attempt to drive off but he did so whilst somebody was clinging on to his car.
“I cannot stress enough the dangers that come with driving irresponsibly and the potential harm it could cause. I hope the sentence passed today will send a clear message that we are prepared to investigate and bring to justice those who drive in such a dangerous manner.”
source:
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ ... r-12271220
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