Crash jail for doc with sight ailment - Basu at wheel, Porsche ran over UK lady

(Top) Alok Ranjan Basu with his wife; a Porsche 911 Carrera, the model Basu was driving

July 22: Alok Ranjan Basu, a 66-year Bengali doctor originally from Calcutta, was sent to prison yesterday for two years for dangerous driving after he had killed a pedestrian.

He was prosecuted after he ploughed his high-performance sports car into a 74-year-old grandmother at 43mph, sending her flying through the air and killing her instantly.

What compounded Basu’s offence was that he knew he had glaucoma cataracts in both eyes and had been repeatedly warned by specialists to report his condition to the DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) so that they could judge if he was fit to drive.

The accident occurred at 1.30pm on Friday, February 5, 2010, on Eastern Avenue, a dual carriage near Southend in Essex.

Shirley Watkins, a pensioner, of Bournemouth Park Road, Southend, was crossing the road when Basu approached her at excessive speed in a 40mph restricted area in his red Porsche 911 Carrera.

The Porsche 911, a luxury 2-door sports coupe made by Porsche AG of Stuttgart, Germany, can cost well in excess of $100,000, though a second-hand one can be picked up for half that price. A stylish and affluent man’s car, it can do 0-60mph in 4.6 seconds and has a top speed of over 180mph.

It is not the automatic choice for Bengali doctors — or Bengalis of any description.

Basu and his wife, who accompanied her husband to court, do not have any children.

According to evidence given later, the speeding motorist did not see the pensioner at all.

As a doctor with an impeccable record of looking after patients for 33 years, he realised the crash victim did not stand a chance. He watched silently as paramedics struggled before declaring the woman had been killed outright.

Yesterday, at Basildon Crown Court, Basu, of Burges Road, Southend, was not only sent to prison by judge Alice Robinson but banned from driving for life and ordered to pay £2,400 in costs.

The judge noted that support from community members, who submitted a 1,600-signature petition to the court calling for leniency, had been extraordinary.

But she added: “By not informing the DVLA about your condition you arrogantly assumed you were safe to drive.”

A senior investigating officer, chief inspector Dick Thomas, said: “This was a very tragic incident resulting in a death that could have been avoided had Dr Basu properly recognised that his eyesight was not at the minimum required level for safe driving.”

The doctor’s counsel, Bernard Richmond, told the court his client now suffered from clinical depression and was a “broken man”.

“He has lost his job and never intends to drive again,” he said.

Basu got his MBBS from Calcutta in 1970. Over the past 33 years he has worked as a general practitioner at Shoebury Health Centre in Essex.

“Today is a sad day for us as we feel the community would have been much better served with a community service order that took advantage of Dr Basu’s abilities,” was the comment from Dilip Patel, who runs the nearby Deejay Pharmacy.

“He was a pillar of the community — you can write that in capital letters.”

He put Basu’s offence down to “human frailty”.

Of the 1,600 who signed the mercy petition, only 100 were Indians, Patel pointed out.Although in local newspaper blogs, a few have argued that Basu has got off lightly, the majority opinion is that there have been two tragedies.

“He was such a good doctor to all his elderly patients,” said one woman. “The reason I changed to him some years ago was because of the care I saw him give on many occasions. Of course, he was totally wrong to be driving, (but) he was a brilliant doctor all the same.”

Another expressed her condolences to the victim’s family but added: “Shoeburyness has lost a great doctor...jail is a harsh punishment, let’s keep jail for repeat offenders who commit crimes willingly.”

A third woman called it “such a shame, Dr Basu was my doctor and he is such a nice, caring man, he was more than a doctor. Someone you could turn to when you were scared and needed help. Yes, it’s a real shame that the lady had to lose her life, but everybody makes errors in judgment that doesn’t in anyway make him a nasty person. So try hard not to judge too harshly.”

When Basu took an optical examination after the tragedy, he could not even read the top line of letters in a test, which is routinely given at a distance of 20ft.

A person with normal eyesight can read the line from a distance of 200ft.