A 4X4 driver left a cyclist seriously hurt after he ran him over while changing music on Spotify on his mobile phone as he sped along a dual carriageway.
The injuries Geraint Coombes caused teacher and family man Edward Taylor meant he couldn’t look after his terminally ill wife during the last days of her life.
Emma Harris, prosecuting, told how the defendant tried to cover his tracks by immediately throwing away his phone and later claimed it was at home.
Geraint Coombes. Picture: Facebook
He also attempted to blame his victim for the crash by claiming he had cycled over the white line of the hard shoulder.
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Miss Harris told how Mr Taylor spent 11 nights in hospital after he was struck by Coombes’ black Land Rover Discovery Sport on the A469 in Llanbradach on Saturday, August 3, 2019.
The weather conditions that morning were fine and dry.
The victim suffered a fractured pelvis, right elbow and left wrist and four broken ribs.
Miss Harris read Mr Taylor’s victim impact statement which said: “At the time, my wife was suffering from cancer and I was her main carer.
“This has put a massive strain on my family. My wife’s mother had to come and look after Ruth and our children.
“A cancer charity had paid for us to go on holiday at Butlin’s but we had to cancel it.
“Had this incident not occurred the care for my wife could have been better in her last few months.”
Miss Harris said after initially claiming he didn’t have a phone with him in the car, the defendant confessed to the police what had happened when they found out he was lying.
He told an officer: “I was changing a song on Spotify and I threw my phone into bushes.
“I only did this because I panicked.”
Former solider Coombes, 32, of Bryn Rhedyn, Mornington Meadows, Caerphilly, admitted causing serious injury by dangerous driving.
He also pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice.
Ed Mitchard, mitigating, said: “The defendant fully accepts responsibility for causing serious injury to Mr Taylor.
“The act of perverting the course of justice was impulsive and it took place seconds after the collision when he was in hysterics.
“When challenged by the police, he came clean with them and took them to where the mobile phone was.”
Mr Mitchard added: “In 2003, my client started work as an office junior and today he is a team leader with 27 members of staff under his direct control.
“He has raised more than £27,000 for cancer charities after he took part in boxing matches in 2013 and 2014.
“The defendant has served in the Territorial Army and the Royal Logistics Corps.
Geraint Coombes. Picture: Gwent Police
“His driving was not impaired by drink or drugs, he was not showing off and he was not driving in an overtly dangerous manner.”
Judge Richard Williams told Coombes: “You made a most difficult situation infinitely worse for Mr Taylor. His wife had terminal cancer.
“He and his family had been to due to go on holiday shortly after this incident but that had to be cancelled.
“Mr Taylor was also unable to devote himself to look after her in her final months as he and she would have wished.
“You jettisoned your smartphone and persisted with the fiction that you didn’t have a phone on you.
“The police dealt promptly and efficiently with the investigation. They had rumbled the lie you had told them.”
Coombes was jailed for 27 months and banned from driving for three years, one month and 15 days.
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