An 86-year-old pedestrian was killed after she raised her hand to thank a driver waiting at a junction, a court has heard. Maureen Sanderson died two days after being hit by a white Nissan Juke driven by 58-year-old charity worker Tracie Spowage in Nuthall Road, Aspley, Nottingham, on October 13 last year.
Driver sentenced for careless driving
Spowage, from Basford, Nottingham, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to causing Mrs Sanderson's death by careless or inconsiderate driving. On Thursday, she was sentenced at Nottingham Crown Court to a 10-month jail term, suspended for 12 months, and disqualified from driving for 18 months. The judge also ordered her to attend 30 rehabilitation sessions and imposed a six-month curfew from 8pm to 6am.
Details of the incident
Prosecutor Philip Cowburn told the court that Spowage had been leaving a car park and waited at the junction onto Nuthall Road for 14 seconds. Mrs Sanderson decided to cross in front of the stationary car. Cowburn said: “Maureen is seen to raise her hand out in the ‘thank you’ motion towards the car, seemingly thanking this defendant for waiting. Mrs Sanderson, Maureen, reaches the midpoint of the Nissan Juke. This defendant drives forwards and collides with her. Maureen falls to the ground and is taken underneath the Nissan Juke.”
Mrs Sanderson was taken to Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham but died on October 15. Spowage, who had been driving for nearly 30 years, already had three penalty points on her licence for speeding on a 30mph road two years earlier.
Judge's comments and defence
Judge Steven Coupland told the defendant that Mrs Sanderson was “entitled to cross the road where she did” and said: “You are here because you did not keep a proper look out or check before moving off.” Defence barrister Lucky Thandi acknowledged that Spowage “did not make a complete check to the left” but did check to the right, the direction of traffic flow. Thandi added: “It’s plain, as Your Honour has already noted, that there was a number of seconds between which Mrs Sanderson would have been in view and the point at which the impact occurs.”
Thandi said of Spowage: “She now knows for the rest of her life she will carry the guilt. She accepts not just through her guilty plea … that she was responsible for this and does not seek to diminish that responsibility in any way.”
Victim impact statement
The court heard that Mrs Sanderson was described by her family as a “strong lady with a zest for life.” Her daughter, Michelle Sanderson, recounted seeing her mother's clothes “cut from her” after the collision and “her favourite coat covered in blood.” In a victim impact statement read by the prosecutor, she said the family had to make the decision to turn off the pensioner's ventilator, adding: “We had been put in this situation, a situation no one should be put in.”
