Jaguar Land Rover manager Andrew Nay admitted four counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving
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A driver who smashed his company 4×4 into an oncoming car during a road rage chase, paralysing two young sisters, has been jailed for four years and six months.
Katrina and Karlina Raiba, now aged eight and six, were left with spinal cord injuries after the devastating crash on the A509 in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, on October 3 last year.
Northampton Crown Court heard that Jaguar Land Rover manager Andrew Nay was “bullying” a woman driving a Mazda people carrier before the smash happened.
Video footage played to the court – and later released by the family – shows Nay, 39, of Harrier Close, Weldon, Corby, pulling right across a junction in his Land Rover Discovery into the path of the victims’ Vauxhall Signum.
He admitted four counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving, but denied chasing the Mazda before the crash.
Judge Adrienne Lucking QC said: “This was a prolonged, persistent and deliberate course of very bad driving.
“No sentence I can pass will ever feel like enough for this family.”
Nay was seen laughing and smiling with his passenger moments before the collision.
Describing the evidence against Nay as overwhelming, Judge Lucking said he had “harried” the people carrier after being prevented from leaving a roundabout on the A14.
The judge told Nay: “I have heard evidence from a series of witnesses travelling in the same direction as the Land Rover.
“In each case their evidence was given in measured terms, without exaggeration. By contrast I found the defendant’s evidence unconvincing and inconsistent.”
Commenting after the court’s ruling, Karlina and Katrina’s parents, Roberts Raibais and Renate Raiba, said their lives had been “completely shattered” by Nay’s actions and that no sentence would be enough.
The couple, originally from Latvia, suffered broken bones in the crash. They said in a statement: “Andrew Nay’s reckless actions had devastating consequences for our two beautiful daughters.
“Katrina and Karlina were happy, active children and he has robbed them of that.
“We will never be able to forgive him.
“Every day they ask ‘when will we start feeling our legs again?’ They think it’s going to get better and it’s too hard to tell them.”
Representing the family, Richard Langton, a serious injury specialist from law firm Slater and Gordon, added: “This is one of the most heartbreaking cases I have ever had to deal with.
“Nay was an experienced driver, yet his complete disregard for other road users has left two innocent children paralysed from the waist down.
“Because of him Katrina and Karlina face a lifetime of profound disability.”
During the trial, witnesses said Nay’s Land Rover was so close they could not see its headlights in their rear view mirrors.
The former local authority employee, who worked on the launch of the Land Rover Discovery 3, was driving within a car length of other motorists in heavy traffic on October 3 last year.
Motorist Fraser Hopes’ Mercedes was undertaken by Nay as he waited to turn into the B547 near Little Harrowden.
Mr Hopes told the trial: “There were two gentlemen in the car. They looked to me as if they were smiling and having a joke, having a laugh.”
Another witness to the crash, Leslie Miller, said of Nay’s right-hand turn: “It was absolutely ridiculous. There was no reason why it couldn’t have waited.”
The senior investigating officer for the accident, Sergeant Tony Hopkins, said of Nay: “This was someone who was an experienced driver, who should have been more aware of his driving.
“Yet he showed complete disregard for other drivers in what was an extended length of aggressive and intimidating driving.
“Sadly, the result today will make no difference to the girls’ lives.
“But we have done what we can to secure a conviction and get this man off our roads.”
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