WHAT price a life destroyed?
Chris Wheatcroft was crossing Sillins Avenue last October after a night out with his cousin when he was hit by a car.
The impact sent Chris, aged 72, onto the bonnet, across the windscreen onto the roof and then into the side of the road.
His serious injuries included a severe bleed to the brain.
The driver, Robbie Aucott, who was 18 and at the wheel of a Citroen C2, didn’t stop but returned some time later on foot with a friend to call the emergency services.
Chris’s wife Marge said the paramedics ‘brought him back from the dead’ but eight months later he still lies in a coma in Moseley Hall Hospital.
“He has gone from being a fit and healthy man to being in a vegetative state, a man who cannot do anything for himself and will need specialist care 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the remainder of his life,” said Marge.
“Chris’s life has been totally destroyed when he should have been enjoying his twilight years, visiting his son and daughter, seeing his grandkids.
“You wouldn’t leave a dog at the side of the road, and all that time his brain was bleeding.
“In so many respects it would have been easier if he had died that night.”
Born and bred in Redditch, Chris and Marge were courting at 18 and have been married for 50 years, and although they’ve lived apart for the past 13 years, they remained best of friends.
They have two children and five grandchildren.
Marge has stomach cancer and Chris would always be there to take her for chemotherapy treatment.
He worked at HDA for 48 years and retired at 65. A lifelong union man, the Unite union made sure he had legal representation at Aucott’s court case.
This was heard at Worcester Magistrates Court on Wednesday, April 28 when Aucott, now 19, of Plymouth Close, Redditch, pleaded guilty to failure to stop at the scene of an accident.
The magistrates heard two street lights weren’t working at the time and took Aucott’s guilty plea into account.
He received an eight week prison sentence suspended for 12 months and was ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £128, costs of £110 and was disqualified from driving for nine months.
