A US colonel has been cleared of causing serious injury by careless driving following a horrific road crash in which two Harrogate schoolboys were badly injured.

Benjamin Oakes, 46, was in a white Vauxhall Astra which pulled out of a junction at the end of the driveway outside Ashville College and collided with the back end of a Ford Ranger pick-up truck, York Magistrates’ Court heard.

The Ford Ranger, driven by Sam Goodall, had swerved in an attempt to avoid the Astra, which clipped the back of his vehicle.

It caused the truck to spin and career across the road, where it 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 and ploughed through a wall at the edge of the college grounds.

Prosecutor Louise Berry said that at least one of the boys, who were both 15 at the time, was “buried under the debris” and both were seriously included. One of them suffered a horrific leg injury after the truck went “three-quarters way through the wall”.

Months in hospital

Giving evidence, one of the boys, who can’t be named for legal reasons, said:

“We got hit through the wall. I think I got knocked out for a bit. We were in the bushes. I just heard (his friend) scream.”

The boy said the truck hit him and he went onto its bonnet before hitting the wall. He said a large piece of wall landed on his left leg.

The teenager, now 16, said he looked over to his friend who saw his own badly injured leg and started screaming and saying he was going to die.

The boys spent 18 weeks and 22 weeks in hospital respectively. One of them needed extensive operations following the collision at about 8.30am on February 2.

Ms Berry said it was the Crown’s case that Mr 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 Mr Oakes’ Astra had been “edging” out of the junction before pulling out completely into the path of the Ford Ranger.

Benjamin Oakes

Mr Oakes, 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 but denied the allegations.

Yesterday, following a two-day trial, district judge Adrian Lower found the US military chief not guilty of both charges.

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A female motorist who witnessed the collision described Mr Oakes’ 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 driven by Mr Goodall, who said that following the crash Mr Oakes told him: “I didn’t see you.”

She said she thought the Astra had pulled out “a bit too early…and that’s what caused him to hit the back of the truck”. She added:

“I felt like the truck just appeared out of nowhere in the opposite lane to me.”

She then looked to her right and saw the two schoolboys walking along the footpath. She said:

“The truck was in the wall, so I knew it had gone into (the boys).

“I thought at the time that the truck was going really quick. I got out of the car…and saw that the Astra was damaged as well. I think we were all in shock.”

‘No conclusive evidence’

Peter Minnikin, Mr Oakes’ lawyer, said that neither his client, the female motorist nor the injured boys had seen the truck as it approached the “blind” junction and suggested it could have been travelling too fast.

District judge Adrian Lower said he had “no doubt that this was a traumatic, extremely painful experience for (the two schoolboys)” but that he had to consider the case dispassionately.

He noted that it was “extremely difficult” for motorists to turn right at the “blind” junction, partly due to a pillar or old gatepost at the end of the driveway.

He said there was “no conclusive evidence” that the truck had been travelling too fast or above the speed limit.

Mr Lower, who noted that Mr Oakes had been driving in the UK without incident for four years, said there was every possibility that the truck wasn’t visible to any of the motorists or witnesses even after Mr Oakes had pulled out of the junction.

He said that for those reasons he couldn’t be satisfied that Mr Oakes’ driving was careless or fell below the standard of a competent driver.

Mr Lower found Mr Oakes not guilty on both counts and made an order for the defendant’s costs to be paid from public funds.

A police officer has been found not guilty of sexually assaulting a woman at a cemetery in Harrogate.

Christopher Hudson, 32, a Harrogate police constable, was accused of assaulting the woman in a car park at Stonefall Cemetery on Wetherby Road.

However, following a trial at Leeds Crown Court, a jury today unanimously acquitted Mr Hudson of the allegation.

The prosecution had alleged that Mr Hudson had stroked the woman on the back of the neck and ear and “pulled her…towards him” before kissing her.

Prosecuting barrister Gerald Hendron alleged that Mr Hudson then took hold of her hand and placed it on an intimate part of his body despite her telling him “no” repeatedly.

He alleged that Mr Hudson then put his hand on the woman’s inner thigh and that she was “shocked and confused”.

Mr Hendron said the woman had sought help from a counsellor about stress which was brought on by the alleged incident in February 2021.

‘Inconsistencies’

However, defence barrister Rebecca Hadgett said there were “inconsistencies” in the woman’s account of events and that Mr Hudson “never touched her in the way she alleges”.

Mr Hudson, of Hollin Terrace, Huddersfield, was arrested in March 2021 when he denied sexually assaulting the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

He was suspended from his job pending the outcome of the trial.

Mr Hudson, who worked for West Yorkshire Police before joining the North Yorkshire force in 2020, walked free from the dock when the jury returned its verdict a short time after retiring to deliberate.

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A Porsche driver who killed a cyclist while allegedly using his phone has been found not guilty of causing death by dangerous driving.

James Bryan, 37, was rushing to get some shopping for his parents during the covid lockdown when his Porsche Carrera 911 ploughed into the back of a bicycle ridden by married father-of-two Andrew Jackson, 36, on the A168 between Wetherby and Boroughbridge, York Crown Court heard.

The prosecution claimed that at the time of the collision, Mr Bryan had been using his mobile and pointed to evidence that showed his Facebook and Instagram accounts were open.

A jury essentially had to decide the case on the single issue of whether Mr Bryan had been using his phone at the time of the fatal crash, which occurred on the afternoon of May 10, 2020.

Mr Bryan denied he was using his phone.

After deliberating long into the afternoon today (Friday, September 23), the jury found him not guilty of causing death by dangerous driving. However, he had already admitted causing death by careless driving and will be sentenced for that offence in October.

Social media claims

During the trial, which began earlier this week, prosecutor Anne Richardson alleged that in the moments before the crash at Allerton Park, Mr Bryan must have been distracted by “something” because Mr Jackson was clearly visible.

She claimed that evidence showed he must have been looking at, scrolling through, or reading posts on social media.

Mr Bryan had taken cocaine and been drinking at his friend’s house in Cheshire the night before the fatal collision at Rabbit Hill Park.

A roadside test in the aftermath of the crash showed that although he wasn’t over the limit for either drink or drugs, there were traces of cocaine, or a cocaine breakdown product, in his system.

Ms Richardson claimed that Bryan, who celebrated his 35th birthday just two days before the accident, would have been impaired by the drugs in his system and from being hungover and tired from the alcohol and festivities the night before.

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He was on the way to drop some groceries off at his parents’ house who were isolating during the covid lockdown when the accident occurred at about 1.40pm. Ms Richardson said:

“The front of the Porsche collided with the rear of Mr Jackson’s bike and Andrew Jackson came off his bike, went up in the air and hit his head on the windscreen and roof of the car, and landed on the road behind the car.

“He was pronounced dead at the scene by an off-duty intensive-care consultant.”

“This is an incredibly sad case. A young mother has lost her husband and father to two (very young) children. Her in-laws have lost their only son.”

Mr Bryan, of St Mary’s Avenue, Harrogate, was arrested and charged with causing death by dangerous driving. He denied the allegation but admitted causing death by careless driving in that he didn’t leave enough room to drive around the bicycle.

Ms Richardson claimed Mr Bryan’s driving was dangerous because he “wasn’t looking at the road ahead of him” as his car approached Mr Jackson.

Died from head injuries

Mr Bryan – who had been at a birthday barbecue in Wilmslow the night before and set off for home early the following morning – called 999 moments after the accident and told a call operator he thought the cyclist was dead.

Other motorists, including the off-duty doctor and his medically trained wife, were on the scene in minutes and called police and an ambulance, but Mr Jackson had already died from head injuries.

Forensic analysis of Mr Bryan’s phone showed that it was unlocked in the moments before the crash and the Instagram and Facebook apps were open.

Mr Bryan was taken in for questioning and told police that Mr Jackson, who lived locally, “came out of nowhere” but then claimed the cyclist had veered into the middle of the road and that he had tried to overtake him, only for the cyclist to “swerve into my path”.

An accident investigator who carried out a reconstruction of the accident said the bike was not in the middle of the road, but on the edge of the carriageway, near a grass verge, and that Mr Bryan had not tried to move around the bicycle.

In one message found on Mr Bryan’s phone on the way back from Cheshire, he told a friend he was hungover from the night before and was “concerned about being late for his parents with their shopping”.

In another sent by Mr Bryan to a female friend while he was at the birthday party the previous night, he told her: “I’m so drunk I can’t see.”

Defence barrister Sophia Dower claimed that Mr Bryan was in a “fit and proper state” to drive and was not using his phone at the time of the crash.

She claimed that Mr Jackson’s bike had veered right from the edge of the road into the path of Mr Bryan’s black Porsche, and that her client “didn’t have enough time to react”.

The off-duty doctor who was at the scene said Mr Jackson had suffered a serious head injury and his helmet was broken.

Mr Bryan will be sentenced on October 21.

Jackson family statement

The Jackson family issued the following statement yesterday after the verdict:

“The outcome from today doesn’t change anything for us; we are still learning to live with the gaping hole in our lives left by Andrew.

“However, it is important we were here to represent Andrew, to get justice for him and to show just how much he is still loved and missed.

“We all deserve to feel safe on our roads and to make it home to our loved ones.

“We respectfully ask for time and space for our family to process the events of this week as we continue to grieve for our husband, father, son and friend.”