A DRIVER who crashed his car into a wall and lamppost on Tonge Moor Road has been fined by magistrates.

Calargero Difalco left the scene of the smash outside Matalan, near to where Ian Wilcox was killed by drink driver Violeta Taraskevic last month.

Difalco, aged 30, of St Paul's Court, Garside Street, Bolton, admitted careless driving and having no insurance but denied failing to stop and report and accident.

At Bolton Magistrates' Court Alan Bakker, prosecuting, told how Difalco was driving an Alfa Romeo along Tonge Moor Road at 1.45pm on January 13.

Witnesses described the vehicle speeding and losing control on the bend near Matalan, mounting the pavement and colliding with a wall and lamppost.

But Difalco did not wait for police to arrive and did not report the accident until the following day.

Giving evidence in his own defence, bicycle salesman Difalco said he did not stay with the car because he was concerned to get his girlfriend, who was a passenger in the vehicle, to hospital.

"I wasn't physically injured but my passenger at the time was — she was screaming," he said.

He added that the two of them walked to the Metro taxi office five minutes away and got a lift to the hospital where he waited with her for an hour before getting another taxi to a friend's house in Bromley Cross.

He claimed he tried unsuccessfully to get through to police and denied prosecution assertions that he had also hit a BMW in the crash.

"It was genuinely an accident and I am sorry it got to this stage in court," he said.

Magistrates found him guilty of failing to stop and failing to report an accident.

He was fined £460 and 10 penalty points were added to his licence. Difaco, a father-of-one, was also ordered to pay £680 in costs and charges.

The court heard that Difalco had previously been convicted of drink driving in 2013.