A Brighton builder who mowed down a pedestrian in Kemp Town and then left him for dead has been jailed for six and a half years.
Footage of Adam McDermott knocking down meter reader Andy Payne in Kemp Town went viral after it was released by Sussex Police in January last year.
Within hours, McDermott was arrested after a rooftop stand-off at his then home in Vernon Terrace, Brighton, after several calls to police identifying him.
Today (Tuesday 28 November) at Brighton Crown Court, he was sentenced to four years for dangerous driving causing serious injury and two and a half years for perverting the course of justice to be served consecutively, making six and a half years in total.
His friend Clark Walker and girlfriend Robyn Burns, who owned the Fiat 500 driven by McDermott, were also sentenced for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
Walker has been jailed for two and a half years and Burns was given a suspended sentence of 18 months and 160 hours of unpaid work.
The hit and run happened at about 3.40pm on Thursday 14 January when 53-year-old Andy Payne, from Hove, was hit as he crossed Montague Place in Kemp Town.
The Fiat was being driven along Bristol Road before turning left into Montague Place where it hit Mr Payne as he crossed the road. It didn’t stop at the scene and carried on up Montague Place and turned right into College Street.
Incredibly, Mr Payne has recovered well from his injuries. He has since gone back to work for the same company although he has retrained to be a smart meter engineer and said he had tried his best to get on with life.
He said: “It impossible to put into words the impact that the defendant’s dangerous driving has had on my life. After I was hit by the car I was left wondering whether I was dying as everything seemed so unrecognisable.
“Physically I am almost back to how I was before, but emotionally and psychologically I feel I need help to come to terms with it. I still cannot understand, as a human being, how the driver could mow me down, without even braking and drive off leaving me for dead.
“It is inconceivable. For them to lie to the police and continue to do so is to me unimaginable. Still to this day I don’t know how I survived. I feel in my heart that it was not my time to die. I have not yet seen the CCTV footage and get very emotional talking about that day.
“It took many months to build myself up both physically and emotionally. I was afraid to walk short distances and found it difficult to cross roads on my own. I have not felt able to go back to the gym, which I had been going to for 30 years, due to fatigue.
“I am grateful to my family for all their support and help getting me through a very difficult time in my life and helping me recover from my injuries.
“I would like to thank the police for their care and incredibly hard work to bring us justice, the hospital staff and the good samaritans who sat with me and helped me after the incident.”
His wife Lisa, 51, a nurse at a GP surgery in the city, didn’t know what had happened to her husband of 28 years until she received a call from her son at about 6pm that day.
She rushed to the Royal Sussex County Hospital to be at his bedside, alongside their three children, thinking they could be spending their last moments with Andy.
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