Two men have been fined for aiding and abetting dangerous driving after an accident in 2016 that left a visually impaired woman from Falmouth in hospital for months. 

The accident happened on September 2, 2016 as Kay Kitto loaded her car on Oakfield Road as she prepared to go on holiday with her family. 
Kay, who is registered blind and has a guide dog called Jackie, was struck by a DAF van after it was hit by a lorry driven by Paul Ince. The lorry was later found to have a safety latch missing which caused a support leg to come loose and hang out to the side while Ince was driving. 

She suffered a fractured spine, femur, tibia, fibula, and knee, and also required skin grafts and had contusions to her head. Her guide dog Jackie was also affected after being thrown from the boot of the car. Her son Dex, who was nine years old at the time, and husband Nigel witnessed the accident.

When it was checked the lorry involved was found to have 18 faults, and was described by an expert as one of the "top ten worst" he had seen in 30 years. 

Gavin Morris Bentley, 40, of Cannock in Staffordshire, was fined £9,000, given 10 points on his licence, and charged £1,000 in prosecution fees for his involvement in the accident. Bentley is the director of Midland Poling Services, the company which owned the lorry involved in the crash

Paul O'Toole, 50, also of Cannock, is employed as a supervisor at the company, and was fined £2,000, given a 14 day driving ban, and made to pay £1,000 in prosecution costs.

Bentley and O'Toole originally pleaded not guilty to aiding and abetting serious injury by dangerous driving, but changed their pleas to guilty after the charge was changed to aiding and abetting dangerous driving. 

The driver Ince, 47, of Leyland, Lancashire, pleaded guilty at Truro Magistrates's Court last year to causing injury by dangerous driving and driving without due care and attention. He will be sentenced on Tuesday, April 17.