A man who caused a motorist life-threatening injuries by driving dangerously was sentenced to a year in prison, but half of that sentence was ordered to be suspended.

Angelo Simons, 31, pleaded guilty this year to charges that he caused grievous bodily harm to Jeffrey Patterson through dangerously driving his motorcycle.

He also admitted driving without a valid licence and not having third party insurance in connection with the 2021 incident.

Puisne Judge Juan Wolffe said: “The circumstances and injuries in this case are horrendous enough.

“They are made worse by the fact that the defendant didn’t have a driver’s licence or even insurance when he drove dangerously.

“He obviously had no regard whatsoever for other road users and it was his selfish and despicable conduct that has altered Mr Patterson’s life for ever.”

Mr Justice Wolffe noted that there was a delay of more than three years before the matter first came before the court and that the Court of Appeal ruled in the case of Larry Benjamin that a delay can warrant sentences to be suspended.

However, he said that the manner of driving was “far more egregious” than in the Benjamin case and the delay was less significant.

In all the circumstances, he said that he would sentence Simons to 12 months in prison for causing grievous bodily harm by driving dangerously, but suspend six months of that sentence.

Mr Justice Wolffe further sentenced Simons to six months for causing grievous bodily harm while driving without a valid licence or insurance, ordering the sentences to run concurrently, and banned Simons from driving all vehicles for three years.

In October, the court heard that Simons was riding his motorcycle along Malabar Road, Sandys, on December 28, 2021, when he attempted to overtake a car driving on a bend and collided head-on with another motorcycle.

Mr Patterson, the rider of the second motorcycle, sustained life-threatening injuries and had to be sent by air ambulance to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

The court heard that he suffered a broken jaw, crushed cheekbone and left eye socket, as well as fractures to his left ribs, his fifth lumbar vertebra, cuts to his knees and left eyelid, a concussion and loss of hearing in his left ear.

Simons himself suffered cuts around his left eye, mouth and left wrist, as well as damage to the tendons in his left hand.

Officers investigating the case discovered that Simons did not have a valid driver’s licence and that his motorcycle was not licensed or insured.

Simons pleaded guilty to several offences stemming from the incident and, at a hearing held on October 24, he said: “I constantly think about Mr Patterson’s body and his family. I’m not a person who goes out and seeks to cause pain.”

Sentencing in the case was delayed after Simons was charged with additional traffic offences related to a separate incident which were alleged to have happened in the early morning of October 25, just hours after his expressions of remorse.

However, the court heard yesterday that the Crown had offered no evidence in that case and the charges had been dismissed.

Delivering his sentence, Mr Justice Wolffe said he accepted Simons’s expressions of remorse and noted both his guilty plea and lack of previous convictions, but expressed disdain for the manner of driving plaguing the island’s roads.

He said: “Unless one is an extraterrestrial alien coming to Bermuda for the first time, one could not be blind to the atrocious driving and riding behaviour on Bermuda roads and the carnage which has resulted.

“Apart from the fatalities which have sadly occurred, there have been countless persons who have made themselves physically disabled or, worse, made others physically disabled by virtue of their conduct on the roads.”

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