SENTENCE on a youth who threw a concrete slab from a road bridge over the A1(M), smashing the cab window of a passing lorry, will take place next month.

David John Maitland admitted a charge criminal damage, being reckless as to whether life was endangered, and causing a danger to road users, at a hearing at Durham Crown Court year ago today (July 18).

But he has had to await his fate at court as the case of a teenage co-accused was still to be heard.

It went to a trial at the court, in April, which resulted in the other youth, aged 16 at the time of the incident, walking free after a judge ordered the case to a halt and instructed the jury to record a ‘not guilty’ verdict midway through the hearing.

The prosecutions arose following two reported incidents where missiles were thrown from a footbridge apparently at passing vehicles on the motorway section of the A1, between West Cornforth and Coxhoe, County Durham, late on November 13, 2012.

One lump of concrete hit the windscreen of a 47-tonne truck causing it to shatter, but the driver escaped injury and managed to safely pull the vehicle off the road.

Another missile landed in front of the car of a Darlington man, who managed to swerve round it.

Twenty-one-year-old Maitland, of Linden Road, West Cornforth, was to have been sentenced at the court today (Friday July 18).

But one of three medical reports, called for by a judge at a previous hearing, has yet to be completed.

As a result Judge Colin Burn adjourned until Friday, August 15.