AN 11-year-old whose parents’ car was struck by a speeding Mercedes driver had been left traumatised by an earlier accident.

The boy, who we are not naming, had to be persuaded by his parents into the family car so they could enjoy a slow drive around Carterton on December 6, 2020, to look at the Christmas lights.

It was while on their festive drive that speeding Mercedes driver Oliver Walters struck the Marshall family’s car head-on.

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Walters, 37, had been at the pub with his friends earlier that evening before deciding to get behind the wheel of his 2010-plate saloon.

He fled the scene of the crash in Burford Road, only handing himself in at the police station 11 days later.

Sentencing him on Thursday afternoon, Judge Nigel Daly said: “Your reaction having collided with [their] vehicle head-on was to get out of your car and run away.

“You left Mr and Mrs Marshall and their son trapped and injured in their vehicle. Mrs Marshall suffered moderate injuries and somehow managed to get out of the window of the vehicle.

“Mr Marshall was in extreme pain himself; as we know he had a fractured clavicle as well as other injuries. But he went back to extricate his son from the vehicle and carry his son away from the scene.”

Having handed himself into the police, he claimed to officers interviewing him that although he had been to some pubs earlier in the day he would have been under the drink-drive limit. He said he had taken his eyes off the road for a moment in order to adjust the car radio.

Judge Daly clearly took a dim view of that explanation when Walters came before him to be sentenced.

The Mercedes had been seen driving on the wrong side of the road and at speeds estimated to be between 70mph and 80mph. “The driving is described by an eyewitness as incredibly risky, absolutely ridiculous and simply dangerous.”

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The judge said: “I have to conclude [that] on the day in question you’d been drinking in various public houses with your friends. How much you’d had to drink we will never know because you fled the scene. You drove far too fast; you were totally out of control.”

He added that he did not believe ‘for one moment’ that Walters was on the wrong side of the road because he was trying to adjust the radio.

Walters, of Queens Road, Carterton, pleaded guilty at the magistrates’ court to causing serious injury by dangerous driving.

He was jailed for 28 months, banned from driving for four years and two months and must pass an extended retest if he wants to drive again.

In mitigation, the crash was described by Walter’s barrister as a ‘wake-up call’. The defendant was ‘somebody who is trying to change’.

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This story was written by Tom Seaward. He joined the team in 2021 as Oxfordshire's court and crime reporter.  

To get in touch with him email: Tom.Seaward@newsquest.co.uk

Follow him on Twitter: @t_seaward