The family of a young girl seriously injured in a head-on crash with a “maniac” banned driver have questioned the length of a sentence imposed after he was convicted of dangerous driving months after his release from prison.
Repeat offender Carlos Lester, 27, from Wisbech, was jailed for four years in 2019 for causing a horror crash when he swerved onto the wrong side of the A47 to overtake a queue of traffic, smashing into the Volvo and caravan driving to a seaside holiday in Hunstanton by the grandparents of Lucia Greathead.
Lucia, five at the time, suffered a deep laceration across her forehead while her grandmother had to be cut from the car and suffered a broken sternum and hearing loss.
Lester - who has 27 previous convictions - was jailed again at Norwich Crown Court last week following a high-speed pursuit through Wisbech that saw him driving so dangerously that police were forced to abandon the chase.
It came just seven months after he was released from prison on licence on August 20 last year.
Sentencing him to the maximum two-year term for dangerous driving, plus two months for driving while disqualified and failing to stop for police, Recorder John Hardy QC said statutory sentencing powers for dangerous driving had prevented him from imposing a far more severe sentence.
“For years it has been apparent to judges that the penalty for dangerous driving is wholly inadequate,” he said.
“This defendant is a menace but the maximum two-year sentence I can pass does not reflect the danger he caused to the public.”
Jon Greathead, father of Lucia, who required surgery following the crash caused by Lester, also questioned whether it was sufficient.
“In 12 months he'll be back out again. That doesn't seem right to me,” he told the Daily Mail.
Earlier this year the government’s new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill increased the maximum penalty for causing death by dangerous driving, and causing death by careless driving under the influence of drink or drug, from 14 years’ imprisonment to life imprisonment. It also created a new offence of causing serious injury by careless driving.
However, the maximum sentence available to courts for those convicted of dangerous driving that does lead to death or serious injury remains two years.
RoadPeace, the national charity for road crash victims, has campaigned for a review of driving offences and called for tougher sentences, including longer custodial sentences and lifelong bans to be given to dangerous drivers and serial offenders.
But it said sentencing is “an emotive issue” and needs to be “evidence based”.
Chief executive Nick Simmons welcomed increased sentences for those causing death by dangerous driving, but added: “People who have had to endure a life-changing injury of bereavement because of a serious crash have always felt that the justice system has not really dealt with that appropriately.”
Lucia Greathead, from Leicestershire, has recovered from her serious injuries and in 2019 was given happier memories of Norfolk when Hunstanton Sea Life Centre arranged for her to enjoy a day helping a keeper feed the turtles.
"Lucia is an incredibly tough little girl, and has always been that way - our warrior princess," said her dad. "She is incredibly resilient and has taken it mostly in her stride, which is obviously to her immense credit - we could not be more proud of her.
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