Carter Ralph’s mum thought her son had been beaten when she first saw him (Picture: Facebook/PA)
A 10-year-old boy was left with his nose hanging off after being hit by an e-bike.
Carter Ralph was playing outside his home in Loughborough, Leicestershire when the ‘heartless’ driver riding ‘at speed’ along the pavement smashed into him.
The rider then ‘simply got back on his bike and rode off’, according to witnesses.
Carter’s mum, hearing her son’s scream, found him seemingly unconscious on the street covered in blood on the evening of October 30.
‘At first, I thought he didn’t have an eyeball, his eyelid was completely covering his one eye. His nose was hanging off,’ mum Nadine Ralph, 39, told The Telegraph.
‘He looked like he had been badly beaten up, he was so battered and bruised. His chest also had a large yellow and blue bruise where I think the bike handlebars had hit him, flipping the cyclist off.’
The schoolboy has no recollection of the crash (Picture: Facebook)
The youngster had to undergo two operations and had sizeable stitching to his nose, mouth and eyelid. He has no memory of the incident, with his mum suspecting he had been knocked out.
Neighbours helped Nadine get her son inside the car to drive him to the hospital.
Nadine reported the incident to the police as a hit-and-run. CCTV footage from a neighbour appears to show the rider on the pavement zipping away from the scene.
Witnesses claim that the cyclist, described as tall and male, was riding along a public footpath when they struck Carter.
‘The fact the cyclist did not stop to check on my child or pick him up off the ground and seek help shows that man has no heart,’ added Nadine.
‘It is unbelievable behaviour.’
You don’t need a licence to ride an e-bike (Picture: Jonathan Brady/PA Wire)
E-bikes, also called electrically assisted pedal cycles, are legal in the UK and don’t require a licence to be driven.
While e-bikes must have a speed restriction of 15.5mph, an increasing number of illegally tinkered ‘death-trap’ e-bikes that can reach speeds of 70mph are being confiscated by the police.
Data on e-bike-related incidents are few and far between. But in London in 2022, there were 64 deaths involving e-bikes and 106 casualties the year before.
Leicestershire Police said: ‘The person riding the bike left the scene following the incident. Enquiries are continuing to establish the full circumstances of the incident including the type of bike which was being ridden.
‘Our investigation remains ongoing including speaking with the boy and his family, house-to-house enquiries and analysing CCTV.’
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