Woman left with 'catastrophic' injuries after crash caused by 'selfish' man unfit to drive
A teaching assistant lost her leg after a driver had an epileptic seizure at the wheel of his van and crashed into a car, which then hit her.
Geoffrey Armstrong, 74, suffered a focal seizure while driving his Volkswagon work van on Market Place, Cardiff on October 20, 2020.
He then crossed the T-junction at Market Road into a blue Nissan, which was parked outside Cardiff Music School, at 19mph.
CCTV footage played at Armstrong's sentencing at Cardiff Crown Court on Friday, 4 August showed the Nissan hitting pedestrian Catherine Brynach.
The mother-of-four was trapped between the car and a wall for a number of minutes. The collision resulted in her fracturing several bones, losing one of her legs, and having to undergo operations while in an induced coma at the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff.
The court heard that Armstrong, of Oaks Close in Bedwas, was aware he "suffered from an illness which showed itself in blackouts" at the time of the collision. Nuhu Gobir, prosecuting, told the court: “He knew it was a condition which made it dangerous for him to drive but he continued to drive regardless, running the risk of causing a serious traffic accident.”
Armstrong had first discussed with GP Dr Lewis in 2017 whether he should be driving, telling him he was having issues with “absences lasting around 20 seconds”, Mr Gobir said.
He was referred to consultant Dr Joseph and, in January 2018, was diagnosed as suffering from seizures. In the same appointment, he was advised not to drive.GP records show on February 6, 2018, in an appointment with Dr Lewis, epilepsy was mentioned, the court heard.
“The defendant must have known he was an epilepsy sufferer, or strongly suspected he was since that time,” Mr Gobir said.Records show that, in December 2018, Dr Joseph told the defendant he had to be seizure-free for at least 12 months before the DVLA would allow him to drive.
However, unbeknown to his doctors, Armstrong had never contacted the DVLA to tell them about his condition. Armstrong told Dr Joseph he’d just started driving again in June 2019.
Immediately after the collision in 2020, Armstrong gave false accounts to a PCSO and three police officers. The court heard he told them he had swerved out of the way of the Nissan, which he claimed was speeding.
CCTV footage from Chapter Arts Centre showed he had failed to stop at the junction and hit the parked Nissan, which then hit Mrs Brynach.Having been shown the footage in a second police interview in March 2021, he told South Wales Police officers that he “may have blacked out,” and that he suffers with a medical condition which causes the blackouts.
He told officers that he was unaware he needed to tell the DVLA about the condition, saying “no one” had told him he had to.
In a victim impact statement that Mrs Brynach read in court, she said that she had hasn't been able to work since the collision.
“I didn’t just lose my leg. The impact of the collision fractured my spine, I fractured my pelvis in four places, and I fractured my cheekbone. I was put into an induced coma for a week,” she said.
Sue Ferrier, for Armstrong, said he "deeply regrets" what he did and that he had no previous convictions and no previous offences on his record.
Describing Mrs Brynach's injuries as "catastrophic", Judge David Wynn Morgan sentenced Armstrong to two years, one year of which he will serve in prison. He said that Armstrong's failure to disclose his condition to the DVLA was "selfish."
He told Armstrong: “This was not an accident. It is a crime with tragic consequences because you knew there was a possibility you were suffering with this condition.”
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