Yahoo News Motorist jailed after killing ambulance technician while speeding on 'autopilot' on dark country lane
A motorist who was speeding in the dark on ‘autopilot’ when he killed an ambulance technician and severely injured his wife has been jailed.
Paul Bird, 45, had hit speeds of nearly 50mph in a 30mph zone when he failed to stop at a junction on a country lane, ploughing his Lexus into a car driven by 52-year-old Gavin Hunt.
Mr Hunt, who had worked as an emergency medical technician for West Midlands Ambulance Service for over 20 years, was pronounced dead at the scene.
His wife Alison was left with a fractured pelvis and pubic bone and two vertebrae separated at the top of her neck.
Bird, of Warndon Villages, Worcester, who had admitted causing death by dangerous driving as well as causing serious injury by dangerous driving, was jailed for four-and-a-half years and disqualified from driving for two and a half years at Worcester Crown Court.
The court heard that Bird was on his way home from work on February 2 last year but had ended up on an unfamiliar road.
Paul Whitfield, prosecuting, said he was travelling at 37.9mph when his car hit Mr Hunt in the village of Clow Tops, Worcestershire at around 7.30pm – but he had been going as fast as 49mph, despite the limit being 30.
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The court heard when Mr Hunt was not working Friday nights, he and his wife would go for a meal at the Colliers Arms pub and they were on their way home on the night of the crash.
Sentencing Bird, Judge Nicholas Cartwright said: “You did not start out to drive dangerously but that is what you did. You failed to give way at this crossroads despite the fact there was a busy A-road running across it.
He said: “There were three signs warning of the junction and a give way sign at the junction.
“It was only as you were right at the junction you began to brake, having realised you had failed to give way. You created a substantial risk of danger.”
Mark Lister, defending, said Bird “can’t explain why what happened, happened” but added: “But perhaps his statement about being on ‘autopilot’ is the only explanation.”
In a statement read out in court, Mrs Hunt said she had been “left feeling a failure” after the death of her husband.
She said: “We loved each other unconditionally. He was loved by everyone who came across him.
“I feel vulnerable and scared of my future. I don’t live, I just exist.”
Tributes to Mr Hunt from his family and colleagues revealed that the popular ambulance worker hadn’t taken one day off sick since joining the service in 1997 and was a “loss to the whole community in which he served”.
