THIS is the Ulster woman who escaped a custodial sentence for mowing down a road worker on the M2 after a court heard she was a victim of road rage in the minutes leading up to the accident.

Nicola Cree of Spittalgate Square appeared at Belfast Crown Court yesterday where she pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily injury by dangerous driving and driving without insurance.

The 29-year-old Aldergrove woman was given 12 months probation, disqualified from driving for two years and was ordered to pay a £50 fine by Judge Kevin Finnegan QC.

On January 5 last year, the mother-of-one was driving her silver Vauxhall Corsa car on the northbound carriageway of the M2 near the junction at Sandyknowes.

She had earlier been to her doctor who told her she was pregnant and was returning home after visiting her parents to tell them the news when the driver of a BMW began driving close to her vehicle and flashed his lights.

Cree sobbed as her barrister explained that on the night of the accident, his client "feared for her life" because of a brutal assault she was subjected to as a teenager. He revealed to the court details of the assault when she was aged 14, which left her requiring intensive care treatment after students at her school lured her to a secluded spot before attacking her with a breeze block and Stanley knife, causing her physical and psychological damage. As a result of this attack she was unable to react to the aggressive actions of the driver of the BMW like an ordinary motorist and accelerated in an effort to get away from him.

However, Cree was approaching roadworks on the M2 at this stage, in which lane restrictions were in place and as the driver of the BMW also accelerated, she was unable to move into the one remaining open lane in time.

As a consequence, she lost control of her car and ran over the road worker, who suffered a punctured lung, six to seven fractured ribs, stitches to his head and eye, as well as swelling and bruising.

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