A grandmother who killed an elderly woman when she reversed over her at speed at Bluewater shopping centre has walked free.

Dawn Chedd was told by Judge Charles Byers it was "not in anybody’s interest" that she should be sent to jail.

The 50-year-old former child minder denied causing the death of Claire Bishop, 71, by careless driving - but a jury took less than 30 minutes to convict her in May.

Chedd was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment, suspended for two years, and banned from driving for two years.

She will also have to complete 200 hours' unpaid work and pay £2,500 costs.

Maidstone Crown Court heard how Chedd, of Cranleigh Drive, Swanley, lost control of her automatic people carrier while parking on January 4 last year.

The victim and her husband Roy, from Bexleyheath, were walking back to their car in the afternoon when the tragedy happened.

Chedd claimed in evidence she had no memory of what happened.

She said she could only recall going to Bluewater about a job with a friend's two-year-old daughter in the back of her Vauxhall Zafira.

But witnesses told how the car shot out of a parking bay in an arc with tyres screeching at about 20mph and struck three cars before mowing down Mrs Bishop.

Her horrified husband saw the car just as it was about to hit his wife. She was left half underneath and bleeding from her head.

The Zafira ended up on the front of a car that was parked in the same row of bays. It was still in reverse gear, with the engine running.

Chedd, the wife of a retired police officer, was found lying injured between two of the cars that had been hit. The driver's door was open. The child in the car was uninjured.

Mrs Bishop was taken, critically injured, to London's King's College Hospital. She died five days later on January 9.

Witness Nigel Holmes said the people carrier's engine was revving so fast before it crashed he thought it was a "boy racer".

The prosecutor said the car was not found to have any faults and a collision investigator believed Chedd must have attempted to stop it by putting her foot on the brake but caught the accelerator instead.

Judge Byers described Mrs Bishop as a loving wife, mother and grandmother who had much to offer.

“We may never know what caused that tragic incident which led to Mrs Bishop’s death and no sentence I pass now can restore her to her family,” he said.

“Your vehicle swerved out of control in a sudden, severe arc from its parking space. You can remember nothing of the incident and Mr Bishop sadly had to witness his wife being run over.

“But I do believe, as you have always expressed, that you do genuinely grieve for Mrs Bishop and her family.

"I, therefore, accept you are a person who genuinely expresses remorse, despite the fact this matter was tried.

"We may never know what caused that tragic incident which led to Mrs Bishop’s death and no sentence I pass now can restore her to her family” - Judge Charles Byers

“I also understand this has had devastating consequences for you, and like the Bishop family, are unlikely to get over this trauma until time heals.”

The judge said Chedd had led a life of devotion to others. She had held a clean driving licence for 33 years. He was prepared to suspend the sentence he said, although the matter did not end there.

She would be punished for her crime by performing 200 hours unpaid work for the community,

Judge Byers added: “I don’t think it is in the public interest, or anybody’s interest for that matter, to send you immediately to prison, and that is why I suspend the sentence.”

Matthew Radstone, defending, said Chedd had suffered herself since the trial.

“She is suicidal,” he told the judge. “She is taking medication and utterly beside herself.”

Mr Radstone said to take a wife, mother and grandmother away from her family and send her to prison was “not appropriate given the circumstances of this case”.