A mother has been fined after she crashed head-on into an ambulance and injured a crew member and another woman.

Kimberley Foord denied causing serious injury by dangerous driving and her guilty plea to careless driving was accepted shortly before she was due to stand trial.

The 49-year-old’s Vauxhall Corsa was travelling in the opposite direction when it drifted over to the wrong side of Town Road, near Cliffe Woods, on the afternoon of April 2 last year and hit the ambulance.

A police officer said the force of the impact pushed the ambulance back at least 12ft on to the verge. Both vehicles were written off.

Prosecutor Victoria Gainza said Lesley Fawcett suffered two fractures to her collarbone and bruising and ambulance worker Sheena Murray had whiplash and headaches.

Ms Fawcett was travelling with her elderly mother, who was a patient. She was also injured but the prosecution were unable to say if it happened before she was put into the ambulance.

Miss Gainza told Maidstone Crown Court she was not able to state that Foord, of Chamberlain Road, Chatham, was travelling at a high speed.

“It is a mixture of relatively low culpability and high harm,” she added.
Jason Dunn-Shaw, defending, said the accident must have been caused either by a lapse of concentration or misjudgement.

An HGV driver described Foord’s car drifting to the middle of the road and then “veering slightly”. Mrs Foord had been driving perfectly properly and well prior to this,” said Mr Dunn-Shaw.

She admitted what she had done and her guilty plea to careless driving was entered almost a year ago, but was not accepted by the prosecution.

"She did demonstrate remorse straight away and was anxious about the condition of the victim" - Jason Dunn-Shaw

“She didn’t try to place the blame elsewhere,” said Mr Dunn-Shaw. “She did demonstrate remorse straight away and was anxious about the condition of the victim.”

The mother of children aged 10 and six, she did not work and her partner was on jobseeker’s allowance. Foord had driven for 30 years. Earlier this year she was fined for speeding.

Fining her £100 with six penalty points on her licence, Judge Philip St John-Stevens said she was driving down a hill when she either momentarily lost control or concentration.

“It may have been mishandling in allowing the car to drift over before taking action,” he said. “There was significant injury to one individual and serious injury to another.”

The judge said the only sentence available to him for the offence was a fine and three to nine penalty points. She was given a year to pay the fine. He added that if Foord had committed dangerous driving it would be “a very different sentence”.