A minicab driver who went the wrong way up a dual carriageway and caused a head-on smash is starting a four-month stretch behind bars.
Delroy Leslie shook his head and wagged his fingers at police officers as he was led down to the cells.
Michael and Christine Hampton suffered serious injuries when their car was struck by his as they drove along the A120, a court heard.
The couple, of Holland-on-Sea, are still suffering months after the crash on July 3 last year.
Leslie came off the Ardleigh Crown roundabout in Colchester and drove down the slip-road to get on to the A120.
But instead of carrying on to the A120, he turned right at the end of the slip road and drove up the road in the wrong direction, Colchester magistrates heard. His Ford Mondeo car smashed head-on with a VW Golf driven by Mr Hampton.
A woman in the cab had serious head injuries, a man had chest injuries and Leslie broke his ribs and now has pins in his pelvis and knees. When police interviewed him, he said he could not remember much about the accident.
The 35-year-old, who is married with children, admitted dangerous driving at an earlier hearing.
James Baird-Murray, mitigating, said it was a mistake Leslie, of Waldronhyrst in Bromley Hill, Kent, "deeply regrets".
"He was unfamiliar with the road lay-out and had become disorientated by the ins and outs of the roundabout there," he said.
More in today's Evening Gazette
Published Monday, January 16, 2006
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