Elderly woman accidentally killed lifelong friend after leaving handbrake off then pressing accelerator instead of brake, sending car hurtling backwards

Victim had been friends with perpetrator ever since school 70 years ago

A pensioner who accidentally killed a lifelong friend in a parking accident has been given a community order.

Patricia Tulip committed a string of mistakes while parking her car that left Joyce Nainby fatally injured in the incident last September.

Newcastle Crown Court heard that after Tulip parked her Skoda Roomster the vehicle began to roll backwards because she had left it in reverse gear rather than neutral, and had failed to apply the handbrake properly.

Swiftly re-entering the car, Tulip tried to brake, but accidentally pressed the accelerator, sending the car hurtling backwards and hitting the grandmother-of-six with the open side door.

The 80-year-old died 10 days later.

Tulip and Nainby had been at school together some seven decades before, prosecutors said.

Tulip admitted causing death by careless driving following the incident and on Tuesday was told she must carry out 100 hours of unpaid work.

Sentencing her, Judge Amanda Rippon said: “As a result of a series of careless errors by you, your car very sadly became the implement responsible for your old and great friend’s tragic death.

“Although she was 80, she was fit and she was active, and she had every reason to expect many more years with her family.”

Tulip was also banned from driving for three years – but the court heard she had given up her licence immediately after the accident.

Describing how the loss had “completely devastated” the Nainby family, the judge said the victim’s husband of 64 years, Peter, died months after the incident without her by his side.

“There is no sentence that I can give that will bring back Joyce Nainby for her family, or for you,” the judge told the defendant.

The court heard that the two friends had been driving back together in the Skoda from a school reunion when the accident happened, with witnesses saying that Tulip, of Seghill, Northumberland, was a trusted and competent motorist with many years’ experience.

A neighbour said the Skoda appeared to reverse at speed, with the side door knocking Nainby to the ground before hitting a parked vehicle.

The victim was knocked unconscious and never woke up, the court heard.

In a statement read in court, one of Nainby’s three children, Geoffrey, said the incident had changed his family’s lives forever. ”Like so many others, we felt confident that terrible things only happen to other people, but then this happened to us,” he said.

The statement added that Geoffrey Nainby’s father, Peter, was ill with both Parkinson’s disease and cancer at the time of the crash, and died in July.

“Their final years could have been so different. Mum could and should have been here to look after Dad in his final months. Put simply, she was not ready to go.”

Shaun Routledge, defending, said Tulip, who wore a purple coat and mopped away tears during the hearing, had written a letter of condolence to her friend’s family.

“I have not come across, in over 30 years, a set of facts or circumstances that are similar to these,” he told the court.

In a statement issued following the sentencing, Nainby’s family said they were disappointed by the defendant’s failure to take responsibility earlier.

They said: “Whilst we accept that the events of that day were a tragic accident caused through Mrs Tulip’s carelessness, every action and decision made by her beyond that date has been made without any respect or consideration whatsoever for the feelings of our family.

“As a friend of our Mum’s, we didn’t seek punishment for Mrs Tulip, all we ever wanted was an acceptance of responsibility.

“Maybe naively, we expected her to ‘do the right thing’ from the start but, as that was not the case, we had no option other than to support a prosecution through the courts.”

The statement added that, as a result of the delay between the incident and Tulip’s sentencing, Peter Nainby had not been able to get closure before his death.

Additional reporting by Press Association