Col Benjamin Oakes’ driving allegedly left the 15-year-olds with serious injuries near Ashville College, in Harrogate, North Yorks.
One screamed he thought he was “going to die” as he lay outside the school on February 2.
Oakes, 46, who was head of the space policy division for the US joint chiefs of staff, yesterday denied two counts of causing injury by careless driving.
Louise Berry, prosecuting, said at York Magistrates’ Court that Oakes was edging his Vauxhall Astra out of a junction when he clipped a Ford pick-up, causing it to hit the wall.
One of the boys, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court: “We got hit through the wall. I think I got knocked out for a bit. We were in the bushes. I just heard [his friend] scream.”
The boy said he was flung on to the pick-up’s bonnet and then found himself with a large piece of the wall on his left leg – his friend saw his own injured leg and started screaming that he was going to die.
A witness told the court he saw the Astra clip the rear of the truck, which was travelling “pretty quickly”. Oakes, from Harrogate, sat listening dressed in a grey suit, white shirt and a striped tie.
The joint chiefs of staff consists of the most senior leaders in the US Department of Defense, which directly advises the president. Top US military personnel are based around the Harrogate area, as they are stationed at the nearby US-run RAF Menwith Hill spy base.
The site, which contains an extensive satellite ground station and is a communications intercept and missile warning centre, is reported to be the largest electronic monitoring set-up in the world.
Although RAF Menwith Hill is owned by the UK’s Ministry of Defence the base is made available to the US Department of Defense under the Nato Status of Forces Agreement signed in 1951.
In 2017 the UK Government disclosed that the US had more than 600 military personnel, contractors and civilians employed at the base alongside around 400 British counterparts working for GCHQ.
The trial continues.
