Ambulanceman drove 'without care'

Graham Dudman retired from the ambulance service after the crash

A Cornwall ambulance driver involved in a collision with a car in which two young men died has been convicted of driving without due care and attention.

Paramedic Graham Dudman, 60, from Wadebridge, was in a collision with a Ford Fiesta near Newquay last year.

David Bellringer, 22, from Wadebridge, and Carl Greenaway, 21, from Delabole, died in the accident on 24 May 2003.

Dudman was fined £1,000, ordered to pay £250 costs and disqualified from driving for 12 months.

Witness jumped

Dudman, of Treforest Road, Wadebridge, was on the wrong side of the A3059 when he crashed head-on into the car, Liskeard Magistrates' Court heard.

He had denied driving without due care and attention.

The Fiesta, carrying five young men on their way home after a Friday night out, ended up on its roof after the accident, the court was told.

The car's three other occupants were badly injured in the collision.

Australian holidaymaker Andre Gacitua, 21, who was flown to the UK from his home in Dapto, New South Wales, told the court he had been forced to jump into a verge to avoid the ambulance.

No mechanical faults were found on the car or the ambulance

The vehicle was not answering an emergency call.

In a police interview read out in court, Dudman said: "All I can remember of the incident is a sudden vision of headlights and a car coming straight towards our vehicle at a speed, skidding and swerving from my right to my left side."

He told police he could not remember anything immediately before the accident.

Nicholas Heathcote Williams, defending, said Dudman had been "deeply shocked" by the accident.

A Devon and Cornwall Police vehicle examiner told the court he had found no mechanical faults on either the Fiesta or the ambulance.

New charge

District Judge Paul Farmer said the accident was "tragic in the truest sense of the word".

Outside court, Mr Bellringer's family called for a change in the law, suggesting that a new motoring offence less serious than death by dangerous driving, but more serious than driving without due care and attention, could be introduced.

Mr Bellringer's sister, Sarah, said: "What is difficult to accept is that the deaths of David and Alex were not allowed to be taken into account when he was charged."

Dudman, who had been in the ambulance service for 27 years at the time of the accident, was awarded the Royal Humane Society award for valour in 1968 and was said to have been known as "Steady Eddie" by his colleagues.

He retired from the ambulance service following the accident.