A POLICE officer who had just arrested an hysterical thief hit a pedestrian with his van’s wing mirror in a narrow York street, magistrates were told.

PC Neville King, who served 23 years in the North Yorkshire force before resigning after the accident in Castlegate last December, was unaware the pedestrian had been hit.

The victim, Neil Gill, has been left with lasting injuries and was due to undergo surgery yesterday or today.

Harrogate magistrates heard yesterday King had been called to Coppergate to arrest a shoplifter and a prisoner had been caged in the rear of his Iveco people carrier and was banging on the vehicle’s sides, causing a racket.

Defence barrister John-Paul Swoboda said as he drove down Castlegate, 57-year-old King – who is now working as a supermarket security officer – clipped Neil Gill on the shoulder as he walked along with his schoolgirl daughter and one of her friends.

Mr Swoboda said King, of Water Lane, Dunnington, who had served in the armed forces for 16 years before becoming a police officer, had been unaware of the accident.

He had been coping single-handedly with a stressful situation and for a fleeting moment he misjudged the space required for his van, something which the court heard could have quite easily happened to anybody.

King, who had earlier denied careless driving, changed his plea to guilty and the Crown Prosecution Service dropped charges of failing to stop after an accident and failing to report the incident.

Prosecutor Sam Rogers said Mr Gill had been swung round by the mirror’s blow, but not knocked over. He now has an on-going problem with his shoulder and was due to undergo surgery after the court hearing.

King was fined £200 with £300 costs, a £15 victim surcharge and given three penalty points.

The Press reported in 2005 how he had received an area commander’s commendation after attending more than 300 crime scenes and making more than 180 arrests in a year.

He detected more than 111 crimes himself, submitted 100 intelligence reports on active criminals, worked nearly 200 shifts and attended more than 600 incidents.