A former Grenadier Guard knocked down and killed an “irreplaceable” teacher as he neared the end of a shift delivering medical supplies, the Old Bailey heard.
Paul Austin, 56, was stressed and “in a rush” at the end of an 11-hour day when he drove his van through a red light and struck Tracey Wilson as she was crossing the road.
Ms Wilson, 55, a teacher at City of London Academy in Islington, suffered a fractured skull in the crash and died two days later in hospital.
The court heard Austin, who spent 10 years in the Grenadier Guards before leaving the Army in 1994, had been working as a driver for Alliance Healthcare, making deliveries to pharmacies.
On December 27, 2018, he was 24 metres away from the crossing in Hornsey High Street when the lights turned red, and had “ample time to stop”, said prosecutor Tom Nicholson.
Austin insisted he “did not see” Ms Wilson. He pleaded guilty last month to causing death by careless driving and was sentenced yesterday to a six-month prison sentence suspended for the next two years.
“It was more than a momentary loss of concentration — it was a serious falling short of the standards of competent driving,” said Judge John Hillen.
He added that Ms Wilson is “irreplaceable” to her friends and family, as well as to the staff and pupils whom she had known through her job of more than two decades.
He said factors in the crash were Austin’s “history of stress” and the presence of a monitor on his van dashboard which informed his bosses about his driving and progress.
Judge Hillen also banned Austin, of Stotfold in Hertfordshire, from driving for the next 10 years, and ordered him to complete 200 hours of community service and 20 days of rehabilitation.
