Southsea pensioner, 63, pinned against wall by BMW left 'wheelchair-bound' with joyrider jailed for 8 months

Carol Curtis, 63, suffered life-changing injuries leaving her ‘wheelchair-bound’ having undergone five operations during three months in hospital.

She is now terrified of seeing BMW cars even in adverts and cannot care for her 82-year-old husband, as she needs care herself, a court heard.

Mrs Curtis said she was on the pavement with her husband talking with others in South Parade in Southsea when she was hit on April 29, 2019.

Her husband was ‘narrowly missed’ by the black BMW that had mounted the pavement between parked cars.

The still-revving car pinned Mrs Curtis against a low garden wall, with headlamp glass slashing her left leg.

‘All of a sudden I heard a loud bang - the noise of one vehicle colliding with another,’ Mrs Curtis said in a statement read at Winchester Crown Court.

‘On hearing the sound I turned around and stepped to the side. As I did I could see a black BMW hurtling towards me.’

The car hit parked vehicles then ‘mounted the pavement and pinned me to the garden wall,’ she said.

The pensioner was left shouting for people to get the car off her, and added: ‘I was in excruciating pain.’

Her right leg suffered multiple fractures.

Mrs Curtis needed treatment first at hospital Southampton, and in Salisbury and at Queen Alexandra Hospital.

‘Nearly all of her right calf was described as being missing,’ prosecutor Gary Venturi said at a Portsmouth Crown Court hearing for the BMW’s passenger.

Declan Gleeson, 25, whose last address was HMP Winchester, was jailed for eight months with a 16-month ban after admitting aggravated vehicle taking.

Last month another man, Spencer Saunders, 24, of Camcross Close, Paulsgrove, was on trial accused of driving at the time of the crash. He denied this and was cleared by a jury in Winchester.

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Portsmouth Crown Court was previously told Saunders and Gleeson had been drinking on April 28 at Gleeson’s partner’s home.

Gleeson, who has 15 convictions for 31 offences, accepted taking the BMW belonging to his partner’s mother the next day, but denied he was driving at the time.

Both he and Saunders fled after the crash - with Saunders returning visibly distressed.

Gleeson however ran away and took a ‘serious load of drugs’ – later being found in a heap needing to be resuscitated at hospital, his barrister Imogen Nelson said.

Ms Nelson said he was ‘genuinely remorseful’ and could not forget seeing Mrs Curtis pinned against the wall and hearing her screams.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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