A man deliberately drove his car the wrong way along the A2 at Dover straight into an HGV in an attempt to kill himself, Canterbury Crown Court was told.

Barry Norris, 52, was badly injured in the crash and the lorry driver, from Poland, broke two vertebrae in his neck and for a while lost the hearing in his left ear.

Jim Harvey, prosecuting, said: “This was a deliberate act.”

Norris, of Selway Court, Deal, admitted causing serious injury by dangerous driving and was jailed for two years and nine months.

Recorder Sir Geoffrey Nice QC told Norris: “It is hard to conceive that you did not have any expectation of causing serious injury to the lorry driver.

"There is no excuse for this of any kind: making roads more dangerous by driving at speed into another driver, who was wholly innocent and a visitor to our shores.”

"There is no excuse for this of any kind: making roads more dangerous by driving at speed into another driver, who was wholly innocent and a visitor to our shores..." - Recorder Sir Geoffrey Nice QC

The court heard that on the afternoon of September 14 last year Norris had an argument with his wife over money. He told her he was going to go out and find a lorry to drive into so she would get the insurance money.

His wife rang the police to say Norris had threatened to kill himself. At 7pm Norris drove his Astra head-on into the path of the lorry on the A2 near the Duke of York’s roundabout.

Witnesses said he looked fixed and focused on what he was doing, while in a statement read to the court the Polish lorry driver said he saw Norris approaching him on the wrong side of the road at considerable speed.

He said: “I flashed my headlights and made attempts to avoid a head-on crash by driving my lorry on to the verge, but the car carried on driving towards me in a head-on fashion. It drove straight in front of my lorry.”

The lorry driver said he still suffered from headaches and had trouble sleeping because he kept reliving the accident.

Edmund Fowler, defending, said Norris was not a person who deliberately set out to injure another. He thought the lorry would accept the impact and his smaller car would bear the brunt.

Mr Fowler said: “Norris suffered depression after being made redundant which caused financial problems. His happy marriage began to deteriorate and his clouded thinking led him to believe that everyone would be better off if he were dead.

“He is ashamed of his actions. His wife has left him and his prospects are bleak. He is now a lonely, less able, solitary man. He will pay his own price for his selfishness that day.”

Recorder Nice told Norris: “I recognise that prison must be harder for you even than it is on others, but in order that there can be no doubt that our roads should not be subjected to driving like this, your sentence cannot be suspended.”

Norris was also banned from driving for five years and ordered to take an extended driving test.

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