A tattoo artist stuck his middle finger up when he walked free from court despite leaving a mother and daughter with critical injuries aft...
A tattoo artist stuck his middle finger up when he walked free from court despite leaving a mother and daughter with critical injuries after a head-on collision during a drunk and driving incident.
On July 13 last year, 39-year-old Scott Roe was driving his Mercedes CLA220 alongHeath Road in Bedworth, Warwickshire, when he "got bored of waiting" for the car in front of him to speed and swerved around it onto the wrong side of the road plowing into an Audi coming the other way.
Roe was traveling at 60mph, reportedly twice the speed limit, when he hit the oncoming vehicle.
The mother and daughter were trapped inside the vehicle for about two hours while emergency crews tried to free them.
While Roe walked away unhurt from the crash, the 19-year-old Audi diver, Chelsea Sidwell suffered critical injuries including a fractured knee and ankle as well as ligament damage and was in a wheelchair for seven weeks following the crash.
Her mother, 39-year-old Kelly Merridew suffered a dislocated right knee, a badly bruised shoulder and had to have metal plates inserted into her shattered pelvis. She was treated for her injuries and later released from the hospital but was unable to move for three-and-a-half months and continued to be on morphine for the pain.
Roe was also taken to the hospital where a blood test showed he was over the legal alcohol limit.
The tattooist, who had two previous convictions for drink driving, pleaded guilty at the Warwick Crown Court to two charges of causing serious injury by dangerous driving and drink driving.
He walked free from court after being handed a 16-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months. The judge also ordered him to take part in a rehabilitation activity and an offending program, do 150 hours of unpaid work, and pay £535 for costs and a four-year driving ban.
"This was a seriously dangerous maneuver executed in the briefest of moments, and no doubt your judgment was clouded by the amount of alcohol you had consumed," Recorder Francesca Levett told Roe during the sentencing.
"Your speed was excessive, estimated to have been twice the speed limit in that area."
"What followed was the consequence of your decision to overtake when it was clearly dangerous to do so, and the injuries caused to Miss Sidwell and her mother were extremely serious."
"I have to balance whether the offenses really are so serious that only prison is justified. I am just persuaded that I can suspend this sentence."
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