An 83-year-old man was today given a suspended sentence after a woman was left with serious brain injuries when he hit his car's accelerator instead of braking.

Pensioner Roy Smith was at the wheel of his Renault Scenic during a shopping trip when it struck 32-year-old Victoria Isaacs in Tesco Crooksfoot car park in February.

Now Smith, of Riverview, has been banned from driving for five years after admitting causing serious injury by dangerous driving.

His barrister, Karen Dempsey, told the judge that he had returned his licence and had no intention of driving again.

Ms Isaacs was flown to hospital with serious injuries after she was hit outside the Willesborough supermarket on February 11.

Prosecutor Alexis Zimbler said doctors believed she wasn’t going to survive and preparations were made to turn off a life-support machine.

But her family told medical experts that she was “a fighter” and urged them to carry on treating the courageous mum.

Ms Zimbler said that after five weeks, Ms Isaacs recovered – although she has now been left with irreparable brain damage and still needed 24-hour care.

She added that that she had also undergone a change in personality, is no longer confident and doesn’t go out of her home.

The prosecutor told how Smith’s car had come to a junction inside the car park when a white van arrived.

Instead of braking, his car accelerated and it struck a car containing Nicola Rossiter and her baby, before smashing into a Range Rover parked nearby.

Ms Isaacs had been standing next to the Range Rover and was knocked onto the bonnet and onto the ground before the Renault ploughed into a hedge.

A shocked Smith was seen seconds later saying: “What happened? What happened?”

Ms Zimbler added that Ms Rossiter had suffered serious back problems after the crash and missed out on breastfeeding her baby because of the injuries.

Ms Dempsey, for Smith, said the former soldier and French polisher had driven for 50 years without an accident or an endorsement.

“What he did was not intentional and he deeply regrets what happened which was caused by peddle confusion. He stepped on the accelerator when he thought he was braking.

“All this happened over a period of 3.4 seconds and it has had a devastating impact on him and others. He feels terrible guilt about the position he has left Ms Isaacs and Ms Rossiter in.

“He wishes he could change things but he can’t.”

Judge Simon James, sitting at Canterbury Crown Court, said that sometimes the criminal law was a "blunt instrument” in dealing with cases of a “momentary error” and the tragic and heartbreaking consequences which sometimes follow.

He gave Smith, who admitted causing serious injury by driving dangerously, a 12 month jail sentence suspended for two years.

And the judge also praised Ms Isaac’s fortitude for “defying the medical experts’ pessimistic diagnosis" to recover to the extent she had.