A DRIVER who showed “contemptible cowardice” when he left a teacher dying in a field has been jailed for 10 months.

Jack Robinson, 23, drove off in his badly damaged Ford Mondeo after it had hit father-of-three John Benjamin Hughes.

Mr Hughes, from Colchester, was killed on the A137 Harwich Road early in the morning on December 8 2018.

Prosecutor Peter Shaw told St Albans crown court: “This case involves the defendant’s actions in response to a road accident. He was driving a car on an unlit road when he collided with a pedestrian who was making his way home from a railway station.

“Sadly, the pedestrian Mr Ben Hughes died as a result of his injuries.

“The assessment of the road traffic investigator was to the effect that the defendant could not have avoided the pedestrian. No charges were therefore brought against the defendant for causing the collision.”

Robinson drove the damaged car for two and a half miles and left it in the car park of the Skinners Arms pub in Manningtree.

He got into a van he had used earlier that day and rang his mother Julia at around 2am.

His mother called 999. Whilst she was on the phone Robison arrived home. She left him in the conservatory, but when the police arrived he had disappeared.

Robinson later returned home and was arrested.

He told the police he had panicked because he had not any car insurance.

He said he had two pints of Carlsberg before the collision and two cans of lager after it.

He was breathalysed at 4.27 in the morning and was not over the limit - that was nearly three hours after Mr Hughes had died.

Robinson, of Lydgate Close, Lawford, Manningtree, appeared for sentence having admitted to dangerous driving and attempting to pervert the course of justice last month before his trial was due to start. He had also admitted failing to stop, failing to report an accident and having no insurance.

The victim’s brother Stephen said in a impact statement: “He was funny, charming and sharply intelligent. He was an accomplished scholar who devoted his life to teaching. Jack Robinson showed contemptible cowardice the moment he made the decision to drive away.”

Jailing him, Judge Richard Foster said: “You are not to blame for his death but you are being sentenced for your appalling behaviour in the aftermath of the accident.

“You were not to know if Ben Hughes had died instantly. Any decent person would have stopped the car, got out called emergency services and give first aid.

“It may be that would have made no difference, but you don’t know that and the family don’t know that.”

The judge banned him from driving for 17 months and said he must take an extended test before regaining his licence.