A photograph of a car crash victim has been published on the front page of a city daily in a bid to warn ‘boy racers’.
The Norwich Evening News printed the picture of Kirsty Barber in her hospital bed after 24-year-old Danny Wright was jailed for two years at Norwich Crown Court for causing serious injury by dangerous driving.
The Evening News tracked Michaela down via Facebook, and invited her into its office where editor David Powles asked her permission to use the photo on the basis the publicity generated could help to save lives in the future.
Three years on from the incident, 20-year-old Kirsty has now recovered after suffering a stroke owing to a blood clot on the brain caused by the crash.
In Friday’s edition of the NEN, pictured above, she said: “When I came out of hospital I had to have physio where I learned to walk and swallow again.
“Now I’m constantly tired all of the time and they say that is the result of the stroke. I am back to normal, but I have not got all my feeling back in my left hand and my mouth.”
Sentencing Wright on Wednesday, Recorder Alasdair Wilson told him in court: “You accept in those days you were a bit of a boy racer.
“Your driving was stupid. You had a number of convictions for speeding, one of them a year or so before this accident.”
However, he accepted that Wright now felt remorse and had matured since the crash.
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Does the editor think readers really need to see this poor woman to understand the effects of speeding by boy racers?
Wouldn’t it have been more effective and damning to have shown the boy racer responsible,coming out of court maybe, more of an effective and graphic name and shame?
Perhaps they couldn’t track him down via the all too common route of Facebook or with no photographers getting the shot might have proved impossible.
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