Van driver jailed for causing head-on crash on A15

Connor Durnian pulled out to go past a low loader on the A15 at Ashby de la Launde thinking the road ahead was clear.

But he did not realise there was a dip in the road and found himself faced with an oncoming Vauxhall Vectra.

Phil Howes, prosecuting, said the Vectra driver instinctively swerved onto the verge in an attempt to avoid a collision but Durnian swerved in the same direction and the vehicles collided head-on.

A rear seat passenger in the Vectra suffered life changing injuries. The 45 year old woman only regained consciousness in hospital two weeks later. She was left permanently blind in her right eye, suffered fractures to facial bones and to her pelvis, injuries to a foot and ankle and damage to a lung.

The driver and the two other passengers in the Vectra were also injured, suffering fractured bones. The group were travelling south on their way to work at a factory at Anwick.

Mr Howes said Durnian was driving home at the end of the day after working in Boston.

“This was a decision to overtake in an inappropriate manner that led to a head-on collision where injuries were caused to four people in the other car.

“The defendant was driving behind a low loader transporting plant machinery.

“He decided to overtake this vehicle but was unable to undertake such a manoeuvre safely before he encountered the Vectra.”

Durnian later told police he thought it was safe to overtake but did not realise there was a dip in the road. He accepted that he was wrong to have tried to overtake.

Durnian, 25, of De Lacy Way, Winterton, admitted causing serious injury by dangerous driving as a result of the collision on September 2, 2020. He was jailed for 14 months and banned from driving for three years and seven months.

Recorder Stuart Sprawson told him: “In my judgement you almost certainly lost patience when following that vehicle. In a momentary aberration you chose to pull out onto the opposite side of the road. You were not familiar with the road. It had dips and that is likely to have prevented you seeing the Vectra travelling in the opposite direction.”

Jeremy Barton, in mitigation, said Durnian has a clean driving licence and had no previous convictions.

He urged that any jail sentence should be suspended and told the court: “Mr Durnian is devastated by the outcome of his bad driving on that day.

“When he pulled out to overtake, what he saw was a clear straight road.

“He has not driven since. There is no intention that this defendant has of ever driving a vehicle again.”