As part of our review of the year over the festive period, here we take a look at the court cases involving driving offences from 2022.
Cyclist killed on The Plain
Unlicensed, uninsured and under the influence Tipper truck driver Robert Whiting "snuffed out" the life of promising research scientist Dr Ling Felce, who was riding her bicycle, on The Plain roundabout in March.
Whiting, 40, was behind the wheel of a 32 tonne tipper truck owned by J&A Driveways, slowed to 5km/h as he approached the junction from the same direction as the cyclist.
He did not stop and had accelerated to 20km/h when he struck Dr Felce, who was killed instantly.
Jailing him for eight years in September, Judge Michael Gledhill KC said: "Dr Suet Ling Felce was a young wife, mother of two young children, beloved daughter of her parents. Sister, profoundly affected by her death, as were many of her friends.
"She was also a remarkable scientist, a research scientist working in fields such as biomedicine, vaccinology, researching into covid vaccines and also oncology.
"So impressed were her colleagues at Oxford University and at no doubt many other institutions, that they are setting up an award in her name to promote other young scientists with her abilities."
He added: "You have heard her husband read out his victim impact statement.
"That can only have moved everybody that has heard it as to the effects upon the family, himself, her children not only then and now but in the years to come.
"And you snuffed out her life in a matter of seconds."
READ MORE: Truck driver 'snuffed out' life of cyclist on The Plain
'You missed your vocation - F1 driver'
Banned driver Kyran Mcfarlane led police on dangerous chases twice on the same day.
The 32-year-old was found sleeping behind the wheel of a BMW 1 series in Abingdon football club’s car park – together with a crossbow on the passenger seat.
He made a few "feeble" attempts at blowing into a breathalyser.
Rather than wait at the scene he ran back to the BMW and despite the efforts of several police officers to wrench his keys from him he was able to get away.
Another police officer spotted him parked up in Wolvercote later that day. Again, Mcfarlane was able to drive off.
In the ensuing chase he hit speeds of 70mph down 30mph limit roads in Headington, skipped red lights and drifted onto the wrong side of the road in an effort to get away from the police.
The pursuit was so dangerous senior police officers called a halt to it.
Jailing him for more than three years in February, Judge Michael Gledhill KC said: “Your driving was rather like that of a Formula 1 driver. But you were not at Silverstone or anywhere else.
"You were in a residential area and your driving was extremely dangerous.”
READ MORE: BMW driver who hit almost 100mph on ring road told by judge he 'missed vocation' as F1 racer
Rapist killed best friend in Witney crash
Jordan Wall left behind his dying friend - after crashing at 70mph.
The 25-year-old lost control of the Ford Connect van he bought just four days earlier after speeding through a red light while being chased by the police through Witney in July 2020.
He was under investigation at the time for a rape, for which he was later convicted.
His passenger, dad-of-three Matthew Hammonds, died at the scene.
Covered in his friend’s blood, Wall fled and tried to climb into people’s gardens before he was caught hiding beneath a tarpaulin.
Jailing him for 12 years, Recorder Michael Roques told Wall: “It was in short a horrific period of sustained, incredibly dangerous driving.
“It was quite frankly entirely predictable that somebody would lose their life, whether that was you or Mr Hammonds or indeed any other road user or pedestrian that was anywhere near you given the way that you had been driving.
“There is no sentence that this court can pass that would in any way reflect the loss of a son, father, partner and uncle...no sentence that could ever put that wrong right.”
READ MORE: Rapist who killed friend in 'horrific' dangerous driving crash is jailed
Nightmare before Christmas
Oliver Walters was suspected of being over the limit when he crashed his Mercedes into the car of a family out in Carterton to see the Christmas lights in December 2020.
He fled the scene, not handing himself into the police station until 11 days after the crash.
One of the occupants of the other car was left with broken bones. All of them - including an 11-year-old boy - were badly shaken.
Judge Nigel Daly, who jailed Walters for 28 months in May, said: “I have to conclude [that] on the day in question you’d been drinking in various public houses with your friends.
"How much you’d had to drink we will never know because you fled the scene. You drove far too fast; you were totally out of control.”
READ MORE: Christmas lights drive ruined by speeding Mercedes driver
Tragic crash was caused by tiredness
Dozing lorry driver Valentin Baluta, 29, was full of remorse for causing the head-on crash in which a "wonderful" dad lost his life.
Evidence from the trucker’s own dash cam pointed to him experiencing exception tiredness in the 45 minutes before the crash on the A420 in December 2020.
He was picked up slaloming onto the wrong side of the road, slowing to 17mph and winding down the window to get fresh air into the cab.
In a letter to the court, he said he wanted with all his heart to "give time back".
He wrote: “I have already received a life sentence. Due to my fault a man lost his life.”
Jailing Baluta for three years and banning him from driving for four years in July, Judge Ian Pringle KC said: “It is clear that your vehicle was drifting towards the offside on a number of occasions some time 45 minutes before this collision occurred.”
The defendant kept his head bowed as the judge added: “You stopped on a number of occasions, you wound the window down, you were playing music, you were doing everything you could, really, to try and keep yourself awake and, of course, you didn’t stay awake and the results were catastrophic.”
READ MORE: Exhausted lorry driver caused fatal crash
‘Pain and anguish’ at loss of husband
Fatal crash driver Aron Hicks broke down in tears as he listened to the dreadful impact the fatal crash had had on his victim’s family.
Brian Hunt’s widow told Oxford Crown Court in June of her family’s "pain and anguish" at the loss of her husband of five decades.
Hicks caused the head-on crash that claimed Mr Hunt’s life on the A417 near Cholsey last year.
Widow Susan said: “Aron Hicks took my husband’s life. He will never understand the effect he’s had on our family.
"It is unimaginable and unpardonable.”
After he admitted causing death by dangerous driving, Hicks was jailed for three years and four months.
READ MORE: ‘Pain and anguish’ as fatal crash driver jailed
Bone breaker back in court
Nathan Crane, 27, sped off from police officers on the A34 when they tried to pull over the white Range Rover he was driving in July.
The Portsmouth man was subject to an 18 month suspended sentence at the time.
It had been imposed at his hometown crown court in 2020 for two sets of dangerous driving offences, including one that had seen him drive directly at a pedestrian before crashing into a lamppost.
Oxford Crown Court was told that Crane had broken "almost every bone" in his body in an earlier crash.
Jailing him for 28 months in August, Judge Maria Lamb said: “At high speeds and for a period of some three to four minutes, you drove in a way which in my view endangered potentially the lives of a number of other road users.”
READ MORE: Dangerous driver had broken ‘almost every bone’ in a previous crash
Spreadeagled over Nissan bonnet
CCTV captured the moment Heather Cherrie, who has never passed her driving test and only held a provisional licence, hoicked the steering wheel to point the Nissan to face her ex-boyfriend and his new partner.
Then 19, she had been crawling along South Street, Banbury, tailing the couple.
She tentatively pressed the car forward then put her foot down on the accelerator – leaving her ex spreadeagled across the bonnet.
Jurors convicted her dangerous driving, rejecting her account that she had been visiting her dad in Nottingham and could not have been behind the wheel.
Sentencing her to a three-month curfew, Recorder Anthony Cartin said: “You’ve been a silly girl over the course of a week in June and July last year.”
He added: “You dragged seven people to court to give evidence against you in what was, frankly, an overwhelming case.
“You shouldn’t, in fact, have been driving at all. Why you had a car and why you were driving around in it I don’t fathom.”
READ MORE: Young mum GUILTY of driving Nissan Micra at her ex-boyfriend
Half-naked after chase
Dangerous driver Patrick Hoyland was half-naked by the time a police dog caught up with him in Bicester.
The 21-year-old made off from officers having rammed a police car when officers tried to box him in outside a Barclays bank in Bicester town centre on December 3 last year.
The ensuing chase saw Hoyland push his VW Touareg to 80mph in a 30 zone while the roads were busy with children leaving school.
He swerved onto the wrong side of the road and, at one point, a pedestrian was forced to jump out the way of the speeding car.
Hoyland dumped the car and fled through gardens – stripping off his t-shirt on the way.
He was pursued by police dog Dax and tracked to Southwold Primary School in Holm Way.
Taken to Abingdon police station, he was found to have wraps of cocaine in his sock and stashed up his bottom.
Imposing 18 months’ imprisonment suspended for a year and a half in October, Judge Nigel Daly said: “You are 21. If you had been a bit older then I might not have thought it appropriate to suspend that sentence.”
READ MORE: Police dog helped sniff out half-naked dangerous driver who had drugs in his bottom
‘It’s not an Xbox game’
Dangerous driver Nudiario Fernandessam, who ploughed into three schoolchildren outside Oxford Academy in Littlemore, was told: “Life is not an Xbox driving game.”
Shortly before the crash in January the uninsured and unlicensed driver was seen "throttling into a handbrake turn" in his borrowed BMW.
Dash cam footage showed he narrowly missed hitting a cyclist before driving off down the road.
He swerved then span the car, which ended on the verge with its back end near the gates to the Oxford Academy.
During the spin, Fernandessam’s BMW struck a group of schoolchildren.
Three had to be taken to the hospital; one had a suspected broken leg, although it later transpired all the children suffered only minor injuries.
The defendant claimed that he had not pulled a handbrake turn deliberately but, instead, lost control of the powerful car.
He was given 12 months’ imprisonment suspended for two years in November for dangerous driving.
Recorder Joseph Hart said: “You could have killed someone.”
READ MORE: Driver who hit schoolchildren is told: 'Life's not an Xbox game'
Blue lights teen
Teenager Joshua Bullock, who ploughed his Audi into a Summertown wall just weeks after driving down a dual-carriageway on fake police lights, was described as a "car crash waiting to happen".
His spree of offences saw him - on October 2, 2021 – drive a Jaguar on the A41 when he illuminated a set of blue and red lights fitted in the car illegally.
He drove behind a Mini, in which there were two female students.
The Mini pulled over – followed by Bullock’s vehicle.
Neither Bullock nor two young men in the car with him at the time, got out of the Jaguar. He drove away without speaking to the women.
A week later, on October 30, he was behind the wheel of his own Audi on the A44 near the Pear Tree Roundabout when he made off from a police car after officers tried to pull him over.
The two minute chase saw the police hit almost 90mph down the Woodstock Road, which has a 30mph limit, in an attempt to keep up with the Audi.
The teenager undertook other cars, shot across a roundabout and went through at least one set of red lights before crashing into a wall at the junction with St Margaret’s Road.
He was later said to have driven a scooter while disqualified from driving – and on magistrates’ court bail.
Judge Michael Gledhill KC imposed a two year community order and three year roads ban.
READ MORE: 'Fake blue lights' teen led police on '90mph chase' down Woodstock Road weeks later
Taxi smash
Ryan Woolcock, 27, left his girlfriend behind in the car after he crashed into a taxi during a police chase from Abingdon Road to Iffley Road in April.
One of the passengers in the taxi was left with life-changing neck injuries, while the second passenger suffered whiplash.
Earlier this month, Judge Ian Pringle KC jailed the Oxford man for two-and-a-half years and banned him from driving for three years and three months.
READ MORE: Driver who's never passed his test left girlfriend behind in crashed Peugeot
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