CORONAVIRUS travel restrictions are preventing a driver who caused life-threatening injuries being brought to justice.

Ingeborg Wesseler admitted her responsibility nine months ago for a head-on crash near Tadcaster that put both drivers involved in hospital. Wesseler, who is German, had been driving on the wrong side of the road.

But she has yet to be sentenced because she returned to her home in Germany after the collision.

On the day her case was listed for sentence at York Crown Court the 60-year-old, from Werl in North Rhine Westphalia, did not appear when her name was called.

Prosecution barrister Adam Keenaghan said Germany is currently on the UK amber list for foreign travel and he didn’t know what restrictions the German Government had put upon its citizens wanting to travel out of its country.

“If the defendant were able to travel to the UK, she would have been required to take a period of self isolation,” he said.

Judge Simon Hickey said the case was too serious for Wesseler to be sentenced via a video link and adjourned it until June 28 in the hope travel restrictions would then allow her to travel.

According to the German Government website on the day of the hearing, Germans were forbidden to leave their country unless it was for “essential travel”.

Wesseler has appeared once before an English court when she attended York Magistrates' Court via a video link in August 2020.

She admitted causing serious injury by dangerous driving on the A162 flyover between 5am-6am on September 22, 2019 and the case was committed to York Crown Court for sentence.

Kathryn Reeve, prosecuting, told the magistrates’ court Wesseler had been driving a van on the wrong side of the road when it crashed head-on into a car. The car driver suffered life-threatening injuries that put him in hospital for weeks. Wesseler was also badly hurt.

For Wesseler, Clive Bergen said she knew she had to drive on the left in Britain, but had got confused following directions on a Google map.

“For a relatively short period of time – 220 metres – she found herself on the wrong side of the road,” he said.