A NURSE has admitted striking a lollipop woman with her car while driving without insurance or an MOT.
Mother-of-two Erin Bain, 31, was in her car with her partner when she tried to leave a car park through an entrance which was marked ‘no exit’.
As she tried to do this, lollipop woman Maureen Bennett, 69, went up to the Toyota Verso driven by Bain to tell her she could not exit the car park that way.
However, Bain, of Hamilton, Lanarkshire, refused to put the window down to listen to the pensioner during the incident outside a primary school in the town.
She instead stuck the car into reverse and then drove off, striking Mrs Bennett on the right leg as she passed and damaging the lollipop stick.
An onlooker then rushed to help and police were contacted.
Bain had gone on trial at Hamilton Sheriff Court but after hearing from two witnesses, she pleaded guilty to driving without care and attention and striking Mrs Bennett and her stick.
She also admitted driving without an MOT or insurance.
Giving evidence, Mrs Bennett, who has been a lollipop lady for six years, told the court she was left shocked by the incident in May 2014.
She said: “I had just put children across the road and saw a car coming out of the ‘no exit’ bit.
“I went to the car to speak to the driver and said to her that she couldn’t come out of there.
“She didn’t put the window down, she just reversed and then moved forward clipping my right leg, she hit me on the thigh.
“I jumped out of the way but my pole took the brunt of it all.
“It was such a shock when it happened and I just couldn’t believe it.”
Mrs Bennett said she feared she would have been more severely injured if Bain had been driving any faster.
“I was quite shaken with it especially the way she backed up and then just came forward,” she told the court.
“If she had been going faster then I would have ended up on my back.
“A passerby phoned the police because I was too shaken to say anything.
“I was not angry or aggressive with her, I was only telling her that she couldn’t come out of the car park that way.”
Eyewitness Donna Ferguson, 38, said she and her partner jumped out of their car after the incident happened.
She added: “The car went backwards and then went forward and hit her right leg, that is why we got out of the car.
“We made sure that she was okay. I took the registration plate of the car down and my partner phoned the police.”
Bain’s not guilty pleas to charges of failing to stop and failing to report the accident to police were accepted by prosecutors.
Sheriff Allan McKay deferred sentence until later this month, where an exceptional hardship hearing will take place, as Bain fights to keep hold of her driving licence.
She refused to comment outside the court.
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