Uninsured driver Jarred Wilson speeding when he hit Andrew Done (From The Northern Echo)

Uninsured driver Jarred Wilson speeding when he hit Andrew Done

8:30am Saturday 14th November 2009

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A TEENAGE hit-andrun driver who knocked down and killed a pedestrian before trying to hide the damaged car was last night starting five years behind bars.

Jarred Wilson was speeding through a North Yorkshire village in his friend’s high-powered hatchback when he struck Andrew Done in September last year.

Mr Done, 42, was walking home from a pub quiz with friend Simon Clayton when the Vauxhall Astra GSi ploughed into him. He died instantly of multiple injuries.

Wilson, then aged 19, had passed his driving test less than five months before the tragedy, which happened in Morton-on-Swale, near Northallerton, in the early hours of September 12.

The uninsured driver fled from the scene, hid the car in a field and lied to the police when they came looking for his friend, the registered keeper of the car, as a potential suspect.

Wilson owned up to being the driver only when his friend and flatmate arrived home, was arrested and put in a police van to be taken away for questioning.

It emerged after Wilson’s trial that he was banned from driving in March for driving without insurance only two weeks after Mr Done died.

Judge Les Spittle told him yesterday: “It is either a callous or cavalier attitude, I don’t know which. It would seem it was a lesson you had not learned.”

Wilson, of Grange Road, Bedale, North Yorkshire, denied causing death by dangerous driving, but was convicted after a trial at Teesside Crown Court in September.

He had pleaded guilty to causing Mr Done’s death while driving without insurance, and has since admitted failing to stop for an accident and failing to report it.

Judge Spittle banned Wilson, who is now 20, from driving for six years and ordered that he take an extended test before getting behind the wheel again.

Neil Clarke, prosecuting, said the case was aggravated by excessive speed, Wilson failing to stop, persistent and deliberate dangerous driving, and him trying to avoid responsibility.

Steven Crossley, for Wilson, said: “He knows that ultimately he has to take responsibility for his actions. He is able to recognise the impact of his offending.

“He has the care of his mother, who is disabled and had her leg amputated and it is a matter which weighs heavily on him that any custody will impact on her.”

During the trial, Wilson admitted being a “petrol head” and speeding at up to 100mph on country roads minutes before the collision, but denied showing off to his passengers.

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