A driver was ‘showing off’ when he mounted a pavement and crashed a £100,000 Ferrari owned by a Dragon’s Den star, a court has heard.
Joey Baptiste, 41, has pleaded guilty to careless driving after smashing a Ferrari F430 in Norwich, Norfolk last year.
The supercar, which was owned by former Dragon’s Den contestant Ross Mendham, smashed into a cycle rack and narrowly missed a jogger.
Baptiste appeared at Great Yarmouth Magistrates’ Court on January 2, where he admitted to careless driving.
He had previously denied driving without due care and attention, claiming the car had suffered a ‘mechanical failure’.
Baptiste changed his plea to guilty as he had ‘lost communication’ with Mr Mendham – so the vehicle could not be tested. The Ferrari was written off following the crash.
Mendham was a passenger in the vehicle at the time of the crash which happened shortly before 5pm on March 17, last year.
CCTV footage showed the car, worth more than £100,000, smashing into four bike racks, before coming to halt as it billowed smoke.
Joey Baptiste (pictured) appeared at Great Yarmouth Magistrates’ Court on January 2 where he admitted to careless driving
CCTV showed the Italian sportscar crashing into the rack on the pavement, throwing up a cloud of debris, before skidding down the road
The supercar, which was owned by former Dragon’s Den contestant Ross Mendham (pictured), smashed into a cycle rack and narrowly missed a jogger
Hollie Davies-Regan, from the Crown Prosecution Service, read a witness account of the incident, which said Baptiste had been ‘revving the engine’ as he waited at a set of red lights.
The witness said they had ‘never seen driving quite so bad and quite so fast down that bit of road’ and they believed the driver had been ‘showing off’.
Another witness said that as Baptiste accelerated he ‘lost control of the back end of the car’ and ‘collided’ with the bike racks.
Neither Baptiste nor Mr Mendham were injured in the crash.
Rachel Buck, Baptiste’s lawyer, told the court that he was insured to drive the car and was doing so because the owner was ‘feeling unwell’.
She said that moments before the crash Baptiste had accidentally hit the accelerator when trying to break.
She added that ‘witnesses think that he was speeding because the car has a loud engine,’ before her client whispered it was a ‘4.7 V8 litre engine’.
This is the moment the Ferrari span out of control and ploughed into a set of bike racks
It then swerved to the opposite side of the road, mounting the pavement again, before stopping in the centre
Mendham won a £60,000 investment for his noodle and pasta business called Bare Naked on Dragon’s Den
Miss Buck said that Baptiste had received four points on his driving licence for an unrelated speeding incident which happened since the Ferrari crash.
The magistrates in Yarmouth indicated they intended to issue him with at least another seven points for this incident.
Miss Buck requested an ‘exceptional hardship application’ be lodged, claiming that Baptiste required his full driving licence to do his job as a ground worker.
She added that he has a son who lives in Fakenham and requires his driving licence to pick him up at the weekends.
Baptiste will appear at Norwich Magistrates’ Court on February 19 to be sentenced.
Ross Mendham, the Ferrari’s owner, appeared on Dragons’ Den in 2013.
Entrepreneur Peter Jones invested £60,000 in his low calorie venture, which is now called Barenaked Foods.
Last year he also launched a fashion brand called God of Design (GOD) that upcycled vintage and designer clothing.