A teenage killer has been jailed for deliberately ramming into a traffic warden – who was about to hand him a parking ticket.
Michael Johnson, 18, smashed into the warden and left him sprawled on the floor.
A court heard how warden David Drury miraculously only suffered minor injuries after being thrown over the bonnet of Johnson’s Vauxhall Omega in Sheppey, Kent, last year.
The shocking incident was captured on Mr Drury’s bodyworn camera but it was not until Johnson was arrested on suspicion of murdering elderly handyman Trevor Hadlow in another hit and run that police were also able to identify him as the driver.
The court heard Mr Drury and a colleague were about to hand Johnson a ticket for parking on a kerb on by a pedestrian crossing when he drove off, straight into the warden.
Mr Drury could be heard on the footage shouting ‘Ouch, Jesus wept’ before calmly radioing: “Just been run over.”
He suffered minor injuries to his shoulders and neck and was able to get straight back to his feet.
A jury at Canterbury Crown Court convicted Johnson of dangerous driving after an hour’s deliberation and Judge Philip Statman sentenced him to five years and three months.
The jury had not been told of his involvement in Mr Hadlow’s killing.
However, Judge Statman said there was a ‘remarkable similarity’ between his driving which killed Mr Hadlow and that involving the traffic warden.
Sentencing Johnson, he told him his actions were ‘utterly reckless’ and he drove away on both occasions ‘without a care in the world’ as to the consequences.
Mr Hadlow, 70, was killed as Johnson made his getaway in a stolen farm trailer.
Johnson’s van struck a gate which swung into Mr Hadlow who managed to reach his caravan but collapsed and was discovered dead on the floor two days later by the farm owner.
Prosecutor Philip Bennetts QC said: “It must have been obvious to the defendant what had occurred and there was a person on the floor and injured. But he drove off.”
Michael Ivers QC, defending, said Johnson panicked as he drove off the farm but the consequences were ‘unexpected and unintended’.
“He knows he has caused untold pain to Mr Hadlow’s family in the course of this incredibly stupid act,” he added.
