A 15-YEAR-OLD took his father’s car and went on a drunken joyride through York, leaving a father-of-two with life-changing injuries in a hit-and-run crash.
The teenager, who has now been locked up, downed six cans of lager and a bottle of another alcoholic drink one day in July and later admitted being “out of his head” when he took his father’s red Seat.
He knocked over chef Pawel Nahorniak, 39, who was cycling home along Bishopthorpe Road to his son and daughter.
The court heard the teenager was mourning the second anniversary of a family tragedy. Mr Nahorniak said in a statement read to the court: “I heard the roar of an engine. I turned my head and I felt the car hit me. I remember I fell on to the car. That is when I banged my head and I fell on to the road. The driver rammed me and did not even ask if I was dead or alive. He did not care.”
The accident happened near the junction with Charlton Street.
Witnesses reported seeing Mr Nahorniak fly through the air before landing in the road, the court heard.
The teenager then continued down Bishopthorpe Road before crashing into a parked transit van and flipping the car on to its roof, said Gill Sandall, prosecuting.
A breath test showed he was three times the drink-drive limit. A taxi driver said that moments earlier the teenager overtook his taxi by driving on a footpath.
Mr Nahorniak suffered serious head, neck and wrist injuries, including a shattered vertebra which required surgery.
He had a disc at the bottom of his back removed and a metal plate inserted. He spent more than a week in hospital and was left with his arm in a cast and in a back brace.
Mr Nahorniak said his injuries also left him with numbness in his left hand, jeopardising his future as a chef at Strada Italian restaurant in Petergate.
He also suffered a broken tooth and injuries to his chin and said his family had suffered financial difficulty as he had been unable to work.
“My life has been put on hold through no fault of my own,” he said.
Pippa Carruthers, for the teenager, said the incident was a “cry for help” from someone “struggling to cope with a very emotional event”.
“It was highly reckless on his behalf. He showed a disregard for the safety of others but also a worrying disregard for his own safety,” she said.
She said the teenager did not know he had hit the cyclist, later confessing he was “out of his head” on alcohol.
The boy appeared before York magistrates on charges including dangerous driving, taking a car without the owner’s consent, drink driving, failing to stop after a collision and failing to provide a breath specimen test. He had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing.
The teenager said in court: “I just want to apologise for what I have done. I just want life to go back to how it was.”
He was given a four-month sentence in a detention centre and a three-year driving ban. Magistrates said: “The accident has caused very serious and life-changing injuries for the victim.”
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