[visordown.com] - Driver who hit motorcyclist and fled after treble vodkas keeps lice

[Ninjette Newsbot]

A DRIVER who drank two treble vodkas before hitting a motorcyclist and failing to stop has kept his licence and walked free from court.

Darren Cheetham, 40, had been drinking at a barbecue before colliding with a motorcyclist while turning right in his convertible Audi A4 off a main road in Northfleet, Kent.

He fled the scene and injured rider and returned to the barbecue, where he drank four or five more treble vodkas and cokes before handing himself into police nearly an hour-and-a-half after the crash.

He used the ‘hip flask’ defence that he would not have been over the limit at the time of the crash based on the amount he said he had drunk in the preceding hour and 50 minutes.

He was not charged with drink-driving but pleaded guilty at Dartford Magistrates’ Court to failing to stop after an accident.

He was fined £110 with £85 costs and a £20 victim surcharge, and given nine points on his licence.

A member of the public walked out and slammed the public gallery door after the sentence was delivered on June 30.

The motorcyclist was taken to Darent Valley Hospital with chest pains and a 15cm cut in his knee after the crash at 5.20pm on March 16.

Cheetham handed himself in at North Kent police station at 6.45pm.

Magistrate Robert Chapman told Cheetham: ‘This was obviously an unsavoury incident and apart from the fact you left the scene of the accident there was an injury to a party involved.’

Prosecutor Lynda Huppatz said Cheetham, of Gravesend, had ‘panicked’ after hitting the black Suzuki GS.

Cheetham told the court: ‘I would just like to apologise to everyone involved.

‘It was my mistake and I would just like to hold my hands up and say I'm sorry.’

The news comes as the Motorcycle Action Group plans demonstrations in nine UK cities against lenient sentences for drivers who kill or injure motorcyclists.



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