Land Cruiser driver in court for hitting cyclist

QUOTE:
AN agricultural worker who knocked a cyclist off her bike and seriously injured her on a country road has received a suspended prison sentence.

Fiona Illingworth told The Press last August how she believed only the helmet she was wearing saved her life.

Michael Cahill, prosecuting, told York Crown Court she was airlifted to Leeds General Infirmary after the collision first with Clive Rutter's Land Cruiser and then with the trailer he was pulling shortly after midday on January 30 near Hovingham.

Rutter was trying to overtake her and her fellow cyclist but misjudged the distance before an oncoming car and pulled back onto the left hand side before he had cleared the pair.

The Land Cruiser grazed her leg but she stayed on her bike until the trailer hit it.

As she fell, her head banged on the side of the trailer, knocking her out.

She was airlifted to Leeds General Infirmary with fears that she had suffered a major head injury.

But though she had broken ribs, lost and damaged teeth and other injuries, she escaped a brain injury, said Mr Cahill.

In August, as she urged other cyclists to wear a helmet, she told The Press: “I was genuinely shocked when I saw the bashing my helmet had sustained, that could have been my skull,� she said.

“If I’d not been wearing a helmet, I know for sure I would not be here to tell the tale."

Rutter, 64, who received a long service award from the Yorkshire Agricultural Society in 2007 and still works in the farming industry, of Nunnington, near Helmsley, pleaded guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving.

He was given a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, banned from driving for 18 months, ordered to take an extended driving test and told to pay £350 prosecution costs.

His barrister Susannah Proctor said he had been horrified by what he had done, driven to find a phone to contact the ambulance service, and looked for Ms Illingworth's missing tooth at the scene.

"He is deeply ashamed by what has happened," she said.

https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/188...list-off-bike/