A high-flying Crown Prosecutor has been banned from driving for 28 days after he was involved in a car crash while uninsured.

Paul Harrison, 47, of Beech Cottage, Sutton, near Witney, was cleared of careless and inconsiderate driving but was found guilty of having an underinflated tyre.

Harrison, the Crown Prosecutor for Oxfordshire, also admitted driving without insurance at Banbury Magistrates' Court yesterday.

The crash happened on January 6 on the B4449 Stanton Harcourt to Hardwick road, near Witney, just outside the entrance to West Oxfordshire Sailing Club. Harrison's M-reg Ford Escort swerved across the road on a bend and collided with a Suzuki Swift, driven by Anne Beerman, of Witney.

Mrs Beerman received multiple injuries, including a broken hip, arm, left ankle and cheekbone.

She is still receiving treatment.

A later examination of Harrison's car by police experts found a nail was embedded in the left rear tyre, which had caused the pressure to drop from 26 pounds per square inch to five.

During the day-long trial, Harrison accepted he had a responsibility to check the tyres but had failed to check their condition since August, four months before the accident. He said he had no insurance because of a mix-up with the renewal papers.

After pleading guilty to having no insurance he was fined £500, given a 28-day ban and ordered to pay £100 costs.

He had pleaded guilty to two other charges of having a defective tyre at an earlier hearing, for which he was fined £60 each. He received an absolute discharge for having an underinflated tyre because he could not be expected to see the lodged nail.

After the hearing, a spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service said: "Now the court case is concluded we will be looking to see if any disciplinary action needs to be taken.

"The matter will be dealt with internally."

Story date: Thursday 09 December

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