A woman driver who struck an off-duty police officer and drove off was fined $1,300 and banned from the roads for three months after a Magistrates’ Court trial.

Sade Burch, 34, was found guilty on Tuesday of driving without due care and attention and leaving the scene of an accident.

Magistrate Khamisi Tokunbo said: “As a consequence of the collision, it is clear that the complainant sustained bodily injury, a swollen knee and cuts to his ankle, and that he also hit his head as a result of a fall to the ground.”

Burch was at first charged with causing grievous bodily harm by driving without due care and attention.

Kentisha Tweed, for the Crown, told the court that the collision caused Mr Field to suffer a detached retina in his right eye which prevented him from working. But the court heard that Alicia Stovell-Washington, a specialist eye doctor who examined Mr Field, said that she could not be “100 per cent certain” the injury was the result of the collision.

Mr Tokunbo said he was “not so sure” that the injuries amounted to grievous bodily harm and convicted Burch of driving without due care and attention.

The magistrate heard that Mr Field was riding his motorcycle on North Shore Road in Devonshire on January 15 last year when Burch collided with him at the junction of Loyal Hill Pass. Burch left the scene after a short discussion with Mr Field and failed to give him contact information.

Police officers later traced the owner of the car through a search for the licence plate number in the police database.

They tracked the owner of the car to his Devonshire home and he said that Burch, who also lived there, was driving the car at the time of the crash.

She later admitted driving the car after she was told that witnesses identified her at the scene of the accident.

The incident took place on January 15 last year.

Burch, from Devonshire, apologised in Magistrates’ Court for her actions.

She said: “I just didn’t want any trouble — I have kids and I’m a single parent.”

Burch added: “I had kids in the car, I was not driving dangerously or recklessly, I only turned out of a gate.”

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