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11
Dec 2023
Accused in Harrogate schoolboy crash didn't check road was clear, court hears
A highly decorated colonel in the US military has gone on trial accused of causing serious injury to two Harrogate schoolboys by careless driving.
Benjamin Oakes, 46, was in a white Vauxhall Astra which pulled out of a junction at the end of a driveway next to Ashville College in Harrogate and collided with the back end of a Ford Ranger pick-up truck, York Magistrates’ Court heard.
Prosecutor Louise Berry said that the Ford Ranger, driven by Sam Goodall, had swerved in an attempt to avoid the Astra.
But the Astra clipped the back of the truck which careered across the road and mounted a pavement on the opposite side of Yew Tree Lane into the path of two teenagers who were walking along the footpath.
The truck struck both boys, who can’t be named for legal reasons, and ploughed through a wall at the edge of the college grounds.
Ms Berry said that at least one of the boys was “buried under the debris” and both were left with serious injuries including a horrific leg injury.
The scene of the crash in February.
Ms Berry said it was the Crown’s case that Oakes, of Tewit Well Avenue, Harrogate, had caused the accident because he hadn’t checked that the way was clear before pulling out of the junction.
She said that Oakes’s Astra had been “edging” out of the junction before pulling out completely into the path of the Ford Ranger.
Witnesses said they saw the Astra “edging out” of the junction before “rolling back” and then pulling out again.
Oakes - who according to his Linked In profile was chief of the space policy division for the US joint chiefs of staff at the Pentagon - was charged with two counts of causing serious injury by careless driving.
He denied the allegations and appeared for trial today at the York court in front of district judge Adrian Lower.
'Aggressive and inpatient'
Ms Berry said it was the Crown’s contention that Oakes had driven carelessly because he had failed to check if the road was “completely clear” before he pulled out.
A female motorist who witnessed the collision described Oakes’s driving in the moments before the crash as “aggressive and inpatient”.
She said he appeared to be “in a rush to leave the junction” before the collision with the pick-up truck driven by Mr Goodall, who said that following the crash Oakes told him: “I didn’t see you.”
Another witness said he saw the Astra pull out of the junction “too far” before “clipping” the back end of the Ford Ranger.
The onus is on the prosecution to prove that Oakes directly contributed to the subsequent collision with the teenagers by pulling out of the junction carelessly, giving the truck driver no chance to take sufficient evasive action to avoid contact with the Astra.
Oakes’s Linked In profile said he had held his current role, which involves directing space policy for the joint chiefs of staff at the Pentagon in Washington, for more than four years.
The joint chiefs of staff consist of the most senior leaders in the United States Department of Defense, who advise the president.
He was previously a political-military analyst in the space policy division and before that was commander of the operational support squadron in the US Airforce.
Hundreds of US military personnel are stationed at RAF Menwith Hill near Harrogate.
The trial continues.
Read more:
- Accused in Harrogate schoolboy crash is US chief of space policy
- Harrogate schoolboys crash: man appears in court
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