A 96-year-old woman who was convicted of causing death by dangerous driving after killing a pedestrian when her car mounted the pavement has been given a suspended sentence.
June Mills, who used a wheelchair to appear at Liverpool crown court, was also disqualified from driving for five years.
Mills was leaving a bridge club when she lost control of her Vauxhall Corsa, killing 76-year-old Brenda Joyce and injuring Jennifer Ensor, 80, on 2 August last year.
She told police she had lost control of the car when it accelerated unexpectedly as she was leaving Elbow Lane Methodist church in Formby, Merseyside, shortly after 4pm.
In a prepared statement to police, she said her accelerator pedal felt as if it had “dropped to the floor” as she manoeuvred round a parked car, and she had “shot forward”.
She added: “It all happened very quickly and there were people in front of me but I could not avoid hitting them because the car was going so fast I had no control over it.”
In court, Tom Gent, defending, said Mills accepted she must have mistakenly applied too much acceleration, which caused her car to lurch forward and mount the kerb.
“This is plainly a dreadfully sad case. Mrs Mills, the defendant, is extremely sorry for what happened,” he added. “The consequences will haunt her for ever. She feels great shame and guilt.”
Sentencing Mills, Judge Simon Medland KC said: “On any view and from every angle this case is an utter tragedy. Mrs Joyce died, Mrs Ensor was injured, you have lost your good character and are in the dock of Liverpool crown court.”
The court heard that Joyce’s husband did not support the prosecution, and that Mills had surrendered her driving licence after the crash.
In a statement read to the court, Ensor said she sustained minor injuries, including tendon damage that prevented her from playing a full round of golf, and had a “sense of guilt” at having survived.
The court heard that Mills, a former careers adviser, had previously been involved in voluntary work with victims of crime and young offenders, and had housed refugees from Ukraine.
The judge gave her credit for a guilty plea made at an earlier hearing, and said the starting point for her sentence would be 18 months in prison. He suspended the sentence for 18 months.
“Bearing in mind the imposition guidelines, the pre-sentence reports, the abundance of references and, if I might add, plain common sense,” Medland said, “it would not profit anybody to make that an immediate sentence, nor would that be a just outcome.”
Mills was also ordered to pay a £1,500 fine and £500 prosecution costs.
According to government data, the number of drivers over the age of 70 in Great Britain increased from 4.5 million to 5.6 million between 2016 and 2020, with older drivers accounting for about 14% of all licence holders.
In 2022, about a quarter of all motorists killed in collisions were older drivers, with older drivers involved in 11% of collisions resulting in casualties.
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency requires drivers over 70 to renew their licence every three years and declare any medical conditions.
However, there have been calls to tighten the rules further. Some organisations, including local councils, offer assessments and courses for older drivers, but there are no nationwide regulations in this area.
Experts from the national older drivers taskforce, the University of Warwick and the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, backed by the Road Safety Trust, have been looking into whether “standardised mature driver assessments” could improve road safety.
Ruth Purdie, the chief executive of the Road Safety Trust, said: “As the number of older drivers on UK roads increases, so do efforts to ensure they remain safe.”
