Wandsworth School Run Mum Convicted of Careless Driving
Dolly Rincon-Aguilar ploughed into children and parents outside Beatrix Potter School
Openview outside Beatrix Potter School. Picture: Google Streetview
A 39-year-old woman from Wandsworth who drove a car into a group of parents and children waiting outside Beatrix Potter Primary School in Earlsfield has been fined £3,000.
Dolly Rincon-Aguilar, mounted the pavement in her Toyota Rav4 after accidentally pressing on the accelerator on 8 September 2020, injuring eleven people as children were being collected at the end of the school day.
Four adults and five children were taken to hospital with two other children treated at the scene by medics. Injuries sustained included fractures to the face and limbs and one victim required emergency surgery to remove a blood clot.
CCTV footage captured the incident which lasted for 8 seconds and shows the car travelling 35 metres before colliding with the wall.
The court heard statements from eyewitnesses about how they had heard an engine revving and then saw the car travelling at speed before there was a loud noise as it hit a seven-year-old boy with his back to the vehicle which he ended up underneath along with other people who had been in the group that bore the brunt of the collision.
The jury found the mother of two, who was collecting her own children at the time of the accident, guilty of the less serious charge of careless driving declining to reach a guilty verdict for eight counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving after three and a half hours of deliberation.
The prosecution had accepted that Ms Rincon-Aguilar had not deliberately driven her car into the crowd but described the incident as a ‘serious bad piece of driving’. She was insured to drive and had not taken drugs or alcohol.
Judge John Lodge described the crash as "traumatic tragedy" and admitted a fine may seem inadequate to some of the victims and their families.
As well as the fine, Ms Rincon-Aguilar must pay £930 costs and has had six penalty points added to her driving licence. She cried in the courtroom while apologising to those injured.
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August 3, 2022