A DRIVER who killed a father of eight when he failed to stop at traffic lights has avoided jail. Christopher Dalton was handed a suspended prison sentence after he admitted causing death by dangerous driving following an accident on March 26 last year.

The crash took place at the junction of the A44 and Langford Lane, near Kidlington, when the 36-year-old drove through the intersection 15 seconds after the lights had turned red.

Yesterday, a judge at Oxford Crown Court heard how his electric Smart Car, belonging to the Mercedes Benz dealership where he worked, crashed into a Subaru Impreza heading south. Paul Penney, known to his friends as Tim, was in the other car’s passenger seat and suffered broken ribs and lung damage.

The 68-year-old was taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital, in Oxford, but his injuries were complicated by a pre-existing lung condition and he died 10 days later.

Mr Penney, whose wife Shirley was driving at the time of the accident, was going for a drive for the first time in three days following surgery.

He lived in Yarnton, near Kidlington, and worked as a market researcher for Nielsen until retiring and opening a cleaning business, Penneys, with his wife. Mr Penney also attended Magdalen College School, whose director of alumni relations Alan Cooper said he was “remembered very fondly” by everyone who knew him. Dalton was travelling at 36mph when he crashed and initially insisted to police the traffic light had been green, until he was showed CCTV footage.

Matthew Walsh, prosecuting, said it was accepted by both sides that the defendant had not seen the red light or intended to ignore it. Judge Gordon Risius said Mrs Penney had “no chance” of avoiding the accident and was in no way to blame.

He told Dalton, who is from Dunstable, Bedfordshire, he had read letters about Mr Penney written by members of his family. Judge Risius said: “They are very moving tributes to a much loved man, whose loss will be deeply felt for a long time by all who knew and cared for him.

“But while I do not underestimate the dreadful impact of his death on his family and friends, no sentence passed by a judge can ever restore human life, nor can the loss of a human life ever be measured by the length of a prison sentence.”

He added: “There was no deliberate decision to ignore the rules of the road, nor were you in my view driving in a way that created a substantial risk of danger.” Judge Risius said he also took into account that Dalton, a father-of-five, supported his wife and children.

Andel Singh, defending, said: “Mr Dalton simply failed to register that the light was red and that had resulted in these disastrous circumstances. He has to live with the fact that he has caused the death of this individual.”

He sentenced Dalton to two years in prison, suspended for two years, with 200 hours of unpaid work and £2,000 costs. He was also banned from driving for two years.