Man banned from driving after crashing his gran's Motability car delivering pizza

Daniel Keen, from Leigh, pleaded guilty to four motoring offences at Wigan and Leigh Magistrates’ Court and received a driving disqualification and curfew.

The court was told the 20-year-old, of Balmoral Drive, had been illegally using the Nissan Juke at weekends to deliver pizzas around Leigh.

Magistrates heard that on February 9 she was in the car with Keen and his mum on a delivery run when she became unwell and asked to be driven to a

GP practice in Culcheth. Prosecuting, Tess Kenyon said that as Keen came over Butts Bridge he made no attempt to stop and ploughed into the back of a vehicle which was waiting to turn right.

The driver and his four-year-old daughter both required hospital treatment for whiplash.

The court was told Keen then panicked and continued driving. He did return to Butts Bridge on the way home but could not see the other car.

Ms Kenyon told the court that in her statement Keen’s grandma, who was given the car to help her due to severe arthritis, had accepted she should not have let him drive the vehicle and has now had it taken off her.

Keen was unrepresented in court and before sentence was passed told magistrates: “I just want to apologise. I don’t know if I’m apologising to the right people but I feel I need to do it.

“Coming to court isn’t a nice experience but it’s me that has done this and I understand that.”

The probation service addressed the bench about Keen, who is an apprentice bricklayer.

The court was told that Keen fled the scene of the crash because he knew he did not have insurance and that when he heard at the police station that a child was in the other car he felt sick.

He fully admitted driving without due care and attention, failing to stop and exchange details at the scene of an accident, driving without insurance and failing to report an accident to the police.

Sentencing him, the magistrates sternly informed him that the matter against him was very serious.

The bench disqualified him from driving for 12 months and imposed a 17-week curfew, with a one-week break in it for a paid-for holiday, between 8pm and 5am.

He was also ordered to pay £85 in costs and an £85 victim’s surcharge.

Last month Wigan Council also prosecuted Keen for misusing a disabled blue badge in a parking bay on Gas Street in Leigh.

Keen admitted the offence and was fined, with the town hall being awarded full costs.