Fiancée's plea saves driver from jail

The court heard that the couple are now engaged

A 22-year-old man whose girlfriend was left paralysed after he crashed their car while showing off has escaped jail after she made a plea to the judge.

Claire Pickett, who spent nearly eight months in hospital following the accident in Merthyr Tydfil, south Wales, wrote to judge John Curran pleading with him not to jail her now fiancé Nathan Roberts.

She told the judge how Roberts had stood by her after the accident and how he was now her sole carer.

We are going through one of the most traumatic times of our lives. Without Nathan I could not have gone through it at all

Claire Pickett

Roberts, a former baker, pleaded guilty to wanton and furious driving in the accident near Merthyr Tydfil on July 12 last year.

Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court heard that Roberts and Miss Pickett had decided to go for a drive in their new Fiesta on the night of the accident.

Roberts drove to a mountainside park outside Merthyr Tydfil where he started to do handbrake turns on a gravel track.

Prosecutor Sue Ferrier said Miss Pickett had told Roberts to stop but he did not and crashed into a ditch, leaving his girlfriend trapped and seriously injured.

She is now paralysed from the chest down.

But the judge was told that after the accident Roberts visited his girlfriend every day for eight months at Rookwood Hospital in Cardiff - a 50-mile round-trip.

The couple became engaged at the end of last year and, since Miss Pickett's release from hospital seven weeks ago, Roberts has been her sole carer at their specially-converted bungalow in Merthyr Tydfil.

'Deprived of carer'

In her letter she said: "We are going through one of the most traumatic times of our lives. Without Nathan I could not have gone through it at all."

Judge Curran said that in cases of such seriousness he would normally give a custodial sentence which carries a maximum of two years.

But he told Roberts: "If I was to jail you I would be depriving this innocent young woman of the carer she loves."

Roberts was given an 18-month sentence suspended for two years.

He refused to comment after the case.