Inthenews-30-jan-01

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/01/30/nhit30.xml

A HIT-and-run driver who continued to drive for more than two miles with his elderly victim's body on the roof of his car was spared a prison sentence yesterday.

Craig Gant, 29, carried on to meet his father at a pub as Tedusz Rogala's arm dangled through his vehicle's broken sun roof and touched him on the shoulder.

He admitted careless driving, failing to stop after an accident and driving without insurance. Gant, unemployed, who was travelling at an estimated 50mph in a 30mph area, had two previous convictions for speeding. He incurred another after the fatal accident.

He was ordered to perform 160 hours' community service, was made the subject of a 12-week curfew order and was banned from driving for four years by Wakefield magistrates. After the hearing relatives of Mr Rogala, 74, a retired hospital porter, criticised the sentence as insulting to his memory.

A spokesman for the family said: "We are severely emotionally traumatised by the horrific way our loved one was killed. We are shaken and stunned by the leniency of the sentence." Hazel Darnton, prosecuting, had told the court it was probably the worst case of failing to stop after an accident that she had ever come across.

Mr Rogala was crossing Thomas Road, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, near his home on December 23 1999 when he was struck by Gant's Honda Accord. The victim's left leg was severed below the knee by the impact and he was thrown over the bonnet before sliding up the windscreen. Mr Rogala, who died instantly from multiple injuries, became wedged in the sunroof.

Gant claimed that he was unaware the body was there until he stopped two and a quarter miles away in the car park of a pub in nearby Horbury. He said he felt something on his shoulder at one point but "dared not look" and was "totally freaked out" when he found out.

Police were called by Gant's father and found the body still in the car. Mrs Darnton said Gant told police he saw Mr Rogala in his headlights and swerved in an effort to avoid him but he ran into his path.

Gant, of Crofton, Wakefield, was banned from driving for seven days in 1996 for speeding. He had been fined on two other occasions for speeding, including once after Mr Rogala's death. A letter was handed in to the court from Mr Rogala's relatives stating that the incident had had "a devastating effect" on the family.

Julie Allott, defending, said the defendant had received counselling for trauma after the accident. She said: "In a state of utter shock, desperation and panic he drove to the prearranged meeting with his father. He was utterly unaware that the body of the deceased was on the roof."

Christine Hudson, the chairman of the court, said the bench had considered prison but accepted that Gant had been traumatised by the incident and had not driven away from the scene to evade the consequences.