Car smashed into speed camera (From Gazette Series)

Car smashed into speed camera

A DRIVER was going "like a bat out of hell" when he crashed into a speed camera - seriously injuring two passengers, a court heard last week.

The camera was completely uprooted as King's car smashed into it, Gloucester Crown Court was told.

Phillip King, 25, of Ann Wicks Road, Frampton-on-Severn, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving on the A38 near Cambridge on June 20 last year.

Prosecutor Joanna Harrison, said King had been recorded driving at speeds of over 107 miles per hour.

She said another driver on the road described King's driving as like a "bat out of hell".

The car went out of control and hit the speed camera, which was then torn entirely from the ground, including its concrete base, she said.

Two of the three passengers - none of whom were wearing seat belts and who had all been drinking - were thrown from the vehicle after they opened the door when the car lost control.

King told the court he was "ashamed" of what he had done.

He was expecting to be sentenced last Friday but prosecutor Alan Fuller explained that medical reports on current condition of the victims were not yet ready.

He asked for the hearing to be adjourned for the reports to be presented because, he said, the injuries and the long-term impact of them on the victims would influence the court in deciding the length of sentence, Recorder Michael de Navarro QC was not impressed with the delay in the preparation of the reports.

"In view of the injuries - a fractured neck to one and spinal fracture to another - that is most unsatisfactory," he said. "It really is ludicrous in a case like this not to get that information."

But he agreed to adjourn the sentencing hearing to July 22 and warned King that a prison sentence was likely.