EXCLUSIVE Ex-BBC star is fined £600 for leaving scene of an accident after her Range Rover crashed into Mazda which ended up in a ditch
A former BBC star has been fined £600 - but will keep her driving licence - after leaving the scene of a car crash that left a driver injured in a ditch.
Karen Patterson, 54, was one of the most famous faces in Northern Ireland having spent 20 years at the Beeb including a decade as a presenter on Good Morning Ulster.
But she left the corporation five years ago to become a dairy farmer.
On March 16 last year, the Range Rover being driven by the former journalist collided with a Mazda MX5 sports car on the Newtownards Road in Comber - a town on the northern edge of Strangford Lough.
The Mazda driver told police that as he was overtaking Ms Patterson's 4x4, she moved across and hit him, sending him off the road.
Her victim suffered an injured wrist and some hearing loss after developing tinnitus.
Ms Patterson pleaded guilty to the offences of careless driving, failing to report and failing to remain at the scene of an accident.
The 54-year-old was sentenced at Newtownards Magistrates Court yesterday and handed handed £600 of fines plus six penalty points on her driving licence.
But she contested a charge of causing grievous bodily injury by careless driving - and the judge in the case sided with her.
Representing the former broadcaster, her defence lawyer Conan Rea told the court that the Mazda driver's injuries to his wrist and hearing could not constitute grievous bodily injury.
Mr Rea said his client had seen the Mazda 'travelling at some speed behind her' - but then lost sight of the sportscar.
The cars bumped but she drove on, however, she claimed that she then went back and could not see the Mazda or any sign of the crash so went home - without calling the police.
The barrister said the former BBC breakfast host now realised that she should have called the Police Service of Northern Ireland, even though she could not locate the Mazda.
Mr Rees said that she had very quickly admitted the offences of leaving the scene of the accident and to careless driving.
District Judge Mark Hamill found her not guilty causing grievous bodily injury by careless driving.
Judge Hamill said that while the case could go to civil court, in his view the injuries suffered by the Mazda driver 'do not come near to GBI.'
He also spared her a driving ban, by giving her six penalty points on her licence. She had three points already, meaning the punishment kept her below the 12 points needed for a ban from the roads.
Her barrister had told the court that she has to drive between her home and the family farm to milk the cows each day, meaning a driving ban would have caused her 'considerable difficulties', according to the Belfast Newsletter newspaper.
The judge imposed £600 of fines, a £15 offender levy and six penalty points.
Karen joined the BBC in 2000 after working for the Bangor Spectator and Downtown-Cool FM, where she covered the 1998 Omagh bombing.
She then went to BBC Newsline and then Good Morning Ulster but left in 2020 to returning to her first love, farming.
She said at the time that dairy cows had been in her family's blood.
She grew up on a dairy farm in County Down, which her father had farmed since 1947.
'I'm quite excited about it, I've been here for 20 years and it's been an amazing journey, but just to be able to pick projects and do things at a bit of a different pace', she said at the time.
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