A former hotel worker broke down in tears as she recalled the moment her boss ran over a bride’s mother the day before her wedding.

Reports of a witness

Judith Wadsworth, 66, died when she was hit by Nicholas Bannister’s Range Rover at the Coniston Hotel and Spa, near Skipton, in February 2020.

Natasha Hobson-Shaw became emotional in the witness box as she told jurors how she ‘witnessed it all’.

Mr Bannister, 64, denies causing her death by careless driving.

Mrs Wadsworth had been collecting boxes for her daughter’s wedding from the car park and was returning to the reception when the collision happened on 7 February, 2020.

Mr Bannister had also been carrying out errands and left the reception before he drove towards the hotel spa in his Range Rover.

Bradford Crown Court was previously told Ms Wadsworth had been using a pedestrian walkway when Mr Bannister turned right out of a junction and hit her at about 17:20 GMT.

Evidence

Giving evidence, Miss Hobson-Shaw said she had finished work and was driving away from the spa area towards the hotel when she saw spotted a pedestrian ahead and saw Mr Bannister’s car.

She told jurors Mr Banister was not going ‘silly fast’ and she thought he was slowing down.

‘I thought he was going slow up to that area because he’d seen Mrs Wadsworth and was going to stop, I didn’t think an accident was going to occur,’ she said.

‘I genuinely thought that everything was going to be fine and he’d seen her and he was slowing down to stop.

‘It didn’t stop and I witnessed it all.’

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She said when Mr Bannister got out of his car he was very shocked and repeatedly said ‘I didn’t see her, I didn’t see her’.

The court was told experts found he was travelling at between nine and 12mph (14 to 19km/h) at the time of the collision.

Prosecutors allege Mr Bannister did not see Mrs Wadsworth because ‘at the time he was not driving with due care or attention’.

However, in an agreed fact read to the court, jurors were told Mrs Wadsworth had been ‘partially obscured by a wooden post and a small post on the car park at the road edge’.

The trial continues.