'Moronic' U.K. driver gets suspended sentence for jousting with ambulance
Last Updated: Saturday, June 13, 2009 | 1:07 PM ET
CBC News
A 20-year-old British driver was given a suspended sentence for deliberately hindering an ambulance carrying a dying patient in what paramedics described as an eight-kilometre road "duel."
According to testimony in a Leicester court in England's East Midlands, Annika Avery overtook the ambulance while it was racing to a hospital with lights flashing and siren sounding in the July 2008 incident.
While other cars moved out of its pathway, Avery repeatedly sped up and cut in front of the ambulance, several times slamming on her brakes, according to a report in the Leicester Mercury.
In the back of the ambulance, paramedic Hayley Aldrige was administering aid to a critically ill elderly woman. Aldrige says she was thrown about and injured herself as the ambulance wove and braked to avoid Avery's Ford Fiesta. At one point, the ambulance driver looked over to the Ford driver and saw Avery and a male passenger laughing and making obscene gestures.
The patient was pronounced dead at the hospital, but it was made clear in court that Avery's antics were not to blame for the death.
Avery had already pleaded guilty to dangerous driving. That did not prevent Judge Howard Morrison from delivering a blistering rebuke Friday at her sentencing, telling her "your moronic and anti-social behaviour is exactly what they [attendants] cannot tolerate."
Morrison also called her driving "disgusting and dangerous," and said she only avoided jail time because of her guilty plea. In addition to her suspended sentence, Avery will also lose her licence for three years and must take a new driving test to get it back.
Her lawyer, Paul Prior, explained Avery's behaviour, saying she was under stress at the time and had had a cancer scare earlier that year. She's currently 31 weeks pregnant and remorseful.
