Market Drayton man 'left to die' after being hit by car, court hears

Carlisle Crown Court has heard how an eastbound BMW 1 series driven by Matthew Paul Leggett collided with James Greenwood, of Market Drayton, at an unlit traffic island close to Braithwaite, near Keswick, Cumbria, just after midnight on April 7 last year.

Mr Greenwood - who was aged 61 and also known as Jimmy - was heading back to a camp site on foot with friends after visiting a pub. He suffered serious injuries which proved fatal.

"Matthew Leggett did not stop to find out how Mr Greenwood was," alleged prosecutor Barbara Webster as Leggett's trial began.

"He didn't help him or even leave his details with the other people at the scene. Mr Greenwood was left to die at the scene."

Leggett, 24, stands accused, in the aftermath of the collision, of doing "a number of acts that could only have been intended to pervert the course of justice", Miss Webster told a jury.

It is alleged he drove 12 miles from the crash scene in a BMW which had a "shattered" windscreen caused by the impact "without providing his details to anyone present"; and that he "abandoned" the vehicle at secluded Setmurthy Woods, near Cockermouth, with the lights and radio still on, and the keys inside.

Leggett is further alleged to have "deliberately discarded" his mobile phone, which was never recovered, after using it to contact his best friend to take him to an address in Cockermouth, and of not returning to a different Cockermouth address of his girlfriend as arranged.

"The prosecution's case is that this was all to avoid detection by the police," Miss Webster alleged.

"The prosecution say there can be no other legitimate explanation for his behaviour in the immediate aftermath of the fatal road traffic accident."

Leggett, of Sonnets Way, Cockermouth, denies one charge alleging that he did acts tending and intended to pervert the course of public justice on April 7, 2018.

He faces no charges in relation to the collision with Mr Greenwood.

The trial continues.