A shopper was fatally injured by an out-of-control van after the driver failed to pull up the handbrake properly.
Matheeb Iqbal’s Mercedes Sprinter careered across a pub car park in Southam and hit Susan Collins, 65, as she walked past.
Warwick Crown Court heard Iqbal, 22, of Lime Grove, Lozells, Birmingham, failed to put the handbrake on properly as he delivered food to the Bowling Green pub in Coventry Street. He was out of the van when it began to move, leaving the victim with “no chance” of escape.
Mrs Collins’ family made the agonising decision to switch off her life support machine on January 8 last year.
Iqbal was handed a 30-week suspended sentence after admitting causing Mrs Collins’ death by careless driving. He was also ordered to perform 200 hours of unpaid work and was banned from driving for a year.
Passing sentence, Judge Richard Griffith-Jones said: “The words that this is a tragic case hardly do justice to the reality of what I’m confronted with. It is a terrible thing for a family to lose a loved one suddenly and because of the fault of someone else.”
He told Iqbal: “You parked on a car park where there was not an obvious steep slope, and you had either not applied the handbrake at all or had done so wholly inadequately. Mrs Collins had no chance to avoid being struck. Neither you nor, more particularly, her family have the consolation of knowing she didn’t suffer – because we have to face the truth that she did.”
