led an extraordinary life that saw her work at the Pentagon<\/a>, and manage both the Welsh national women\u2019s netball and rugby teams, suffered \u2018catastrophic\u2019 injuries and tragically died, the jury was told.<\/p>\nAt the start of a trial at Bristol Crown Court, Hodge pleaded \u2018not guilty\u2019 to a single charge of causing death by careless driving on June 9, 2024. In his opening statement, prosecuting Adam Vaitilingham, told the jury that they would hear that her defence would be that her car left the carriageway because she was experiencing an epileptic seizure.<\/p>\n
She pleaded \u2018not guilty\u2019 on the grounds of insanity, which Mr Vaitingham said was an outdated phrase to use, but was the legal definition of her defence.<\/p>\n
The jury was told that after the crash, police interviewed Hodge at the scene. \u201cShe was asked what had happened and she said \u2018I don\u2019t know why I lost my concentration\u2026 I can\u2019t account for what had happened,\u201d said Mr Vaitilingham.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was asked if she thought she had a medical condition and she replied that she didn\u2019t, she was asked if she thought she had experienced a medical episode and she replied \u2018no\u2019, and she was asked if she lost consciousness and she replied \u2018no\u2019,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The court heard police tested Hodge for drink and drugs and she tested negative.<\/p>\n
The jury was told they would hear from Donna Crossman\u2019s two friends who were walking with her on the day of the incident. The court was told they were aware of the red car suddenly mounting the pavement, and it narrowly missed them but struck their friend, knocking her over the railing.<\/p>\n
Mr Vaitilingham outlined who the jury would hear from during the trial, which is expected to last two or three days. He said the court would hear from two passengers in Hodge\u2019s car. She and her friends had been walking in the Mendips during the day, and were returning to Bristol.<\/p>\n
Their evidence would be that they were chatting in the car and it suddenly started drifting to the left and hit the pavement.<\/p>\n
The court was also told it would hear from two people who were travelling in a car behind Hodge\u2019s Citroen, who noticed it was drifting across the road before it eventually went onto the pavement. Mr Vaitilingham said the jury would hear they were concerned enough to slow down and keep their distance from the red car in front.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe prosecution say that the most likely explanation was that Hodge was simply not driving with the level of care and attention that is expected, and that although it was not a prolonged piece of careless driving, it was enough to have devastating consequences,\u201d Mr Vaitilingham added.<\/p>\n
The case continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fiona Hodge has pleaded \u2018not guilty\u2019 on the grounds of insanity 13:46, 13 Apr 2026Updated 17:24, 13 Apr…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1218,141,61,5497,5,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-13294","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-avon-and-somerset-constabulary","9":"tag-courts","10":"tag-crime","11":"tag-take-that","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116398428155347017","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Donna](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1_TCBR100326DonnaCrossmanBRI.jpg\")
<\/p>\n