A DRIVER who “caused terror” and a five-car pile-up near a popular North Yorkshire tourist attraction has been spared a trip to jail.

Nathan Herrington, 25, was driving competitively in a high-powered BMW against his brother in a similar car in the afternoon of April 30 last year, said Kelly Clarke, prosecuting.

He overtook his sibling, swinging so fast into the opposite carriageway a driver coming the other way thought “Jesus Christ, what speed is he doing” as he tried to avoid Herrington.

The 25-year-old crashed into - or forced to crash off the road - four cars coming the other way and left two people seriously injured, the barrister told York Crown Court.

One of them, a 67-year-old globe-trotting television producer, said in a personal statement that she saw smoke coming from her dashboard as she was trapped in her car following the crash and believed it was on fire.

“I was thinking, this is it, the car would explode, and I would die.” Police later told her the “smoke” was caused by her airbags inflating.

She said post traumatic stress disorder and the injuries she sustained, including an open fracture to her leg, had changed her from a fit, creative person to “an old frail woman” whom she didn’t recognise as herself.

Judge Simon Hickey said Herrington had risked the lives of five people in the four cars travelling in the opposite direction to him and his girlfriend and a child in his own car.

The defendant had taken a “deliberate decision to ignore the rules of the road and disregard for the risk of danger to other people. You were completely in the wrong carriageway. Your driving damaged and caused terror to four different vehicles,” the judge said.

Defence barrister Kristina Goodwin said if Herrington was jailed his partner would lose their accommodation as she had health problems that stopped her from working and Herrington was the main breadwinner.

“He has shown very genuine remorse and he is devastated by the consequences of his actions,” she said.

After consulting national sentencing guidelines, the judge said: “With the greatest reluctance, I am going to suspend the sentence.”

He passed an 18-month prison sentence suspended for two years on condition Herrington does 10 days’ rehabilitative activities and 200 hours’ unpaid work.

He also banned Herrington from driving for three years and ordered him to take an extended driving test before driving alone again.

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Ms Goodwin said since Herrington passed his driving test three years ago, he had driven about 180,000 miles without a driving conviction.

Herrington, of Long Row, West Tanfield, Ripon, pleaded guilty to two charges of causing serious injuries by dangerous driving on the A6108 close to the entrance to Lightwater Valley theme park.

Ms Clarke said the four cars involved in the crash were a Mercedes, a Vauxhall Corsa that had to swerve onto the verge, a Suzuki whose driver suffered a broken ankle and which went onto the verge and rolled down a bank and the Audi of the television producer.