Birmingham Ferrari driver who caused five-car smash now has to get Ubers to work

• BPM MEDIA

A driver of a Ferrari who caused a five-car smash has been banned from the roads and now has to use Uber to get to work.

Richard Cullen lost control of the SF90 hyper car on Hagley Road in Halesowen causing it to smash into a parked vehicle which caused a domino effect collision with other stationary cars.

The 50-year-old entrepreneur then fled the scene but claimed it was only because witnesses were being "aggressive" to him.

The owner of one of the damaged vehicles branded him "arrogant" but Cullen denied he was speeding and argues he accidentally hit the accelerator rather than the brake, the court heard.

On March 27 Birmingham Magistrates' Court heard the father-of-six was going to "struggle significantly" from a 12-month driving disqualification and would have to hire drivers and catch taxis to run his various businesses, which include pest control companies.

Cullen, of St. Kenelm's Road in Romsley, Worcestershire, admitted careless driving and failing to stop after a road accident.

He was fined £10,069 based on his means and ordered to pay £185 costs as well as a £190 victim surcharge.

The incident occurred around 7.30pm on May 25 last year.

Prosecutor Alinah Iqbal said: "While in the vehicle on the Hagley Road for reasons not established he lost control causing it to veer across the road into the opposite carriageway.

"He failed to correct the deviation and subsequently collided on the front end with another vehicle.

"The level of impact physically lifted that into the air and backwards into a third vehicle, which forced that into a fourth vehicle, which hit a fifth vehicle."

She added: "One of the victims saw the defendant climb out of the vehicle and make off towards Halesowen town centre."

In a statement read out in court, a female owner of one of the ruined cars said the incident caused a "large financial impact" to her as well as the inconvenience of being without her vehicle.

Another victim said: "He showed arrogance. It is clear from the fact he was driving so recklessly.

"It is deeply worrying he showed a disregard for human life and chose to speed up and down the road. We and especially our children need protection from such drivers."

But Jason Aris, defending, refuted any suggestion Cullen was speeding beforehand and said: "It might be best described as an accident.

Essentially he has not driven the vehicle on more than two occasions. He pressed the accelerator rather than brake and that caused him to lose control.

"It is not a case and I take objection to any part of the victim impact statement suggesting he was driving up and down Hagley Road at speed.

"That's not what happened. This is something that happened in the spur of the moment."

Explaining what happened in the immediate aftermath he added: "There is a very short piece of footage, Mr Cullen climbed out of the car.

"There are a number of people present. They quickly converged on him.

"There was a large presence of abusive swearing. Any reasonable driver when confronted by such hostility and aggression would have left."

Mr Aris accepted Cullen failed to go straight to the police station, but stated he was expecting officers to contact him adding that his client did in fact call the force the following day.

Mr Aris summarised his client's means as around £18,000 income per month against £20,500 outgoings with the 'caveat' that his wife also contributed towards maintaining their household.

He said: "He works extremely long hours. He would ordinarily require vehicles to go from one depot to another.

"He does not have an argument under exceptional hardship but he is going to have to employ drivers and utilise taxis and Ubers which are going to come at considerable expense to him.

"He is going to struggle quite significantly during work hours."

The barrister disputed court records that stated Cullen pleaded guilty to failure to stop after an accident at a previous hearing and he said he actually admitted an offence of failure to report an accident.

But he accepted the charge to prevent a costly adjournment for his client - paying privately for legal representation - and because it ultimately did not affect his overall sentence.

District Judge Michelle Smith said: "This is very serious because of the damage caused."