The driver of a concrete mixer lorry hit by a pick-up which overtook him on the A30, was left trapped in his cab, hanging upside down in his seat belt until he could be cut free.

He said afterwards that the incident, which injured him, had changed his life and his outlook on things. “I cannot believe what the other driver did,” he told police.

At Truro Magistrates’ Court, the motorist who hit him, John Anthony Henderson, aged 36, of Copper Hill, Hayle, pleaded guilty to driving without due care and attention on the A30 at Treswithian in December.

Alison May for the CPS said the collision occurred at 9.30am. The concrete mixer overtook Henderson, who then overtook it, clipping it as he pulled in front of it, before swinging into the central reservation and hitting the mixer again, overturning it. Henderson had two previous convictions for speeding.

Henderson told District Judge Diane Baker: “I made a mistake, I pulled in too quickly. My vehicle was very slow, and I misjudged it.”

He said he was the managing director of a firm making log burning stoves, and that disqualification would affect the turnover of his business.

He was fined £560 with £141 costs and charges and given seven points on his licence. The District Judge accepted that a driving ban would cause exceptional hardship and did not impose one.