A polo-playing student escaped with a £55 fine after smashing into a former regional editor’s £60,000 Range Rover.
Marc Astley avoided serious injury after 20-year-old Beau Banks lost control of his Land Rover Defender and hit the former Exeter Express & Echo editor’s brand new Range Rover Sport.
Banks was fined and given three penalty points after admitting driving without due care and attention at Exeter Magistrates’ Court earlier this month.
Marc told his old newspaper it was lucky “in a way” that Banks hit his large vehicle rather than a smaller car in front in which a young child was travelling.
The scene of the crash on the A3072 in March
He said: “The lady behind me was in a much smaller vehicle and had a child in the rear seat. If the Defender had crashed into her and not me I dread to think what the consequences might have been.
“Also, If I had not been in the way I think it would have gone through the hedge and overturned in a garden,” he added.
“If you take in to account the potential lost business, the time I spent chasing the repairs and the money I lost on exchanging the car, I am thousands of pounds out of pocket.
“The only upside is that no one was seriously hurt. It could have been far more serious.”
The court heard Banks, a student in urban planning at University of the West of England, had “clipped a kerb” and lost control of the Land Rover on the A3072 in Devon on 7 March.
Jeremy Wickham, defending Banks, said: “There is no suggestion he was travelling above the speed limit – it was a momentary loss of concentration, a mis-judgement.”
Marc, who now runs his own PR firm Astley Media, had been travelling to a meeting to give a presentation and potentially lost out on a £20,000 contract as a result of the incident.
His car required extensive rebuilding work, including a new gearbox and chassis legs.
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This is news !
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The definition of “slow news day.”
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Is that a private reg? If not it wasn’t a brand new car.
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“If the Defender had crashed . . .” “If I had not been in the way . . . ” “If you take in to account . . .”
So, what if . . . something really happened?
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Wouldn’t be in a rush to engage the services of a PR firm headed up by someone who, despite being the innocent party here, manages to come across as a bit of a tit!
As an aside, when he was editor of the Echo didn’t Astley make a big play of his green credentials and trading in his Porsche for a Toyota Prius?!
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I’m presuming this is pure parody:
“A polo-playing student escaped with a £55 fine after smashing into a former regional editor’s £60,000 Range Rover.
Marc Astley avoided serious injury after 20-year-old Beau Banks lost control of his Land Rover Defender and hit the former Exeter Express & Echo editor’s brand new Range Rover Sport.”
If not I’m really worried. Only because one look at that first paragraph is frightening for those of us who like to think standards should be maintained. The student is “polo-playing” – which means, exactly? – and he “escaped with a £55 fine”. So should he have been fined more?
We have no idea as the rest of the article gives zero details on what happened. And if it hadn’t been a former regional editor would it have been a story? It’s a car crash. They happen every day!
Ludicrous.
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