A PENSIONER left wheelchair -bound after her car hurtled across the carriageway during a fatal tragedy has avoided an immediate jail-term.

Lydia Fearns' Suzuki Wagon smashed into a Kia Picanto on the A44 between Woodstock and Enstone, Oxford Crown Court heard last Thursday.

The collision on October 4 last year left 81-year-old passenger Ian Fletcher with ‘catastrophic’ injuries and he died in hospital just hours later.

His wife Valerie, who was driving, suffered cuts and fractures and was kept in hospital for six days.

Fearns, who confessed to causing death by careless driving left court with a six-month sentence, suspended for two years, when she appeared before Judge Maria Lamb. Sentencing, Judge Lamb said she ‘admired and commended’ Mr Fletcher’s family for their requests not to send Fearns straight to prison.

She told 71-year-old Fearns: “You did not recognise your shortcomings in being able to deal with the situation and you weren’t able to deal with the driving conditions that presented themselves.

“You should have stopped but you did not.”

Passenger Mr Fletcher and wife Valerie left their Chipping Norton home for a trip to Kidlington’s Bunker’s Hill Garden Shop on the dry and sunny day, prosecutor Nigel Daly said.

As Mrs Fletcher drove through a right-hand bend, she spotted a car careering towards them on the wrong sid of the road.

She attempted to steer away but had ‘virtually no time to react’ before the head-on smash at about 4.15pm, the prosecutor added.

Fearns was on her way home following an appointment at the John Radcliffe Hospital after previously having two kidney transplants.

Witnesses spotted her starting to cross the opposite carriageway before returning to the correct lane moments before the smash.

She then drifted across to the wrong side of the road about half-a-mile on, Mr Daly said.

Defence barrister Jonathan Coode said Ferns, who had no previous convictions, wished to make an ‘unreserved apology’ to the Fletcher family.

The widow, who was in hospital for almost six months following the tragedy, failed to steer around the left-hand bend, driving straight on towards Mr Fletcher and his wife.

‘Honourable’ Fearns told police she had been dazzled by the low sun but the barrister said she may have ‘nodded off momentarily’.

The defendant, who has problems with her eyesight, hearing and concentration, has vowed never to drive again.

Ferns, of The Square, Lower Slaughter, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, must pay a victim surcharge, was handed a three-year driving ban, and told to take a mandatory re-test if she wishes to drive again.