A teenage cocaine-driver who ploughed his mother’s Vauxhall Corsa into a Glenrothes house, injuring a pensioner as he watched TV, has avoided prison due to his age.
Labourer Jay Cation’s appalling driving left resident Allan Henderson with serious injuries including a fractured rib, cuts to his scalp and stomach and bruising.
Cation’s then-girlfriend, Bailey Brand, was in the passenger seat and suffered a fractured sternum.
Cation, 19, appeared at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court for sentencing after earlier pleading guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving while under the influence of cocaine at Woodside Way and Woodside Road on July 21 last year.
Cation, of Rannoch Road, Glenrothes, also admitted using the car without insurance.
Sheriff Charles Lugton told him: “This was a bad case of dangerous driving.
“It involved causing injury to others and involved causing very serious damage to a dwelling house, so the court requires to take it very seriously.”
The sheriff said he took account of Cation being a first offender and his young age and that, were it not for this, custody would be “almost inevitable”.
Sheriff Lugton gave Cation the maximum available 300 hours of unpaid work before stating: “The discount (for pleading guilty) is, in effect, you are not going to jail.”
The sheriff also banned him from driving for two years and made requirements for him to sit an extended driving test to drive again and participate in a road traffic offenders groupwork programme.
Cation was also placed on offender supervision for the same period.
Cocaine use followed cannabis abuse
Defence lawyer David Cranston said his client takes the offence very seriously and reflects on it every day.
The solicitor said: “He has brought with him to court today a bag in anticipation (the court will be) considering a custodial sentence.
“He recognises what he has done here has been catastrophically stupid.”
Mr Cranston said Cation became involved in cocaine use about a year before the offence following a series of incidents in his life, including the death of his grandmother and a matter relating to his then-partner.
The solicitor highlighted Cation, who had difficulties in school and started misusing cannabis from a young age, was in an “emotional mess” by the middle of last year.
He said his client has subsequently offended but not in a analogous manner.
The lawyer said Cation has a new partner and his “dream is to have a very mundane, normal life”.
Devastating crash
Prosecutor Sarah Smith told the court previously Cation was spotted by a police officer driving his mother’s car at excessive speed towards Woodside Way, overtaking a vehicle before “erratically” swerving back in.
A bus driver had to swerve to avoid a collision with the oncoming Corsa and saw it nearly hit another car.
Cation braked at a roundabout before smashing into a house.
Mr Henderson, then aged 67, was in his front downstairs sitting room watching TV and his wife, Linda, was at the back of the house.
Ms Smith said: “The Corsa driven by the accused ploughed straight into the front of (the house), taking out the front wall and internal wall which separated the front and rear rooms, before coming to rest on the sofa in the front room, pinning Allan Henderson down.”
Mr Henderson’s wife heard a loud bang and was showered with debris from the wall.
She climbed over the rubble to try to get to the front room to help her husband, who had a puncture wound to his stomach and an injury to the back of his head, but could not reach him.
A major incident was declared.
Mr Henderson was taken to Ninewells Hospital in Dundee and admitted for four days.
He has since made a full recovery but in a statement released through lawyers, the couple said: “We’ll never forget that day – it was absolutely terrifying and completely changed everything in our lives.”
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