The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
A Spalding woman who suffered devastating injuries in a crash caused by a driver’s careless action has emotionally spoken of the impact on her life.
Demi Blackbourn (27) is now partially blind and her health has seriously struggled since the crash last December.
Her parents, Clive and Kay, were warned that she might not survive her injuries.
Incredibly, it was the second time in seven months that the couple had been told that one of their three children had been badly injured in a collision.
Last May, their 23-year-old son Jordan and a friend were knocked down by a hit-and-run driver in New Road, Spalding.
William Jones, of Washway Road, Fleet, was traced after a police appeal.
The 29-year-old was convicted of dangerous driving and failing to stop after an accident and sentenced to eight months in prison.
Just over a week after that hearing, on December 23, Demi was the passenger in a car which was hit at the crossroads of Old Fendyke Road and Mill Drove North in Spalding.
Their BMW rolled three times before coming to rest upside down in a water-filled dyke.
Demi and driver Jordan Boraston could not release their seatbelts and feared for their lives before a passer-by cut them free using a penknife.
Last Wednesday, 49-year-old Charlotte Mayock, of Old Fendyke Road, Weston Hills, was at Boston Magistrates’ Court to plead guilty to causing serious injury by careless driving.
Her Jaguar F-PACE pulled out into the path of the BMW, which was going about 40mph.
Prosecutor Fiona McClelland said Mayock, who had her 16-year-old son in the car, claimed she came to a stop at the Give Way junction and saw the BMW approaching from her left.
“But she said she felt she had enough time and pulled out,” Miss McClelland added.
Demi told police: “I remember spinning and being upside down. There was water starting to fill the vehicle and I remember feeling absolutely terrified.
“I genuinely thought I was going to die.
“I remember thinking no one has seen us and we’re going to be trapped in here.”
She suffered two broken ribs, a damaged windpipe and the eye damage. Fortunately for Jordan, her only physical injuries were bruising.
Demi told the court of the “worst struggle” since the crash, including contracting pneumonia, and the effect it has had on her family and her future.
The graphic design manager said: “Both my work colleague and I will have to live with the consequences of someone else’s actions for the rest of our lives.
“The constant pain in my chest, head, back and hips make me not want to get up to face the day.”
Solicitor Mike Alexander, mitigating, said Mayock had no previous convictions and he too had made misjudgments while driving.
He added: “My client was unaware that [Demi’s] injuries were permanent and when I told her that earlier today she was notably upset that she has caused that kind of injury.
“There is nothing she can say, there is nothing she can do to put that right.”
Mr Alexander accepted that the starting point on the sentencing guidelines was a jail sentence.
The bench committed Mayock to Lincoln Crown Court for sentencing on a date to be fixed.
