A Kingston Hospital doctor will stand trial over the accident of Surrey Comet features editor June Sampson nearly a year after the incident.

Miss Sampson, 81, spent six months recovering at St George’s Hospital after being struck by a car outside of the hospital on November 26, last year.

She was left with serious injuries including several broken bones and a bleed on the brain.

Consultant obstetrician Andrew Breeze, 39, from Leeds, denies driving his Volkswagen Passat without due care and attention.

He will stand trial at Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court on November 17.

The trial is expected to last two days.

It is alleged Mr Breeze, who studied medicine at Cambridge University, pulled out from Kingston Hospital’s car park in Galsworthy Road before hitting Miss Sampson, who was crossing the road.

Miss Sampson, a grandmother and mother-of-two, became the first woman in Kingston in modern times to be awarded the honour of freedom of the borough in June.

She has worked for the Surrey Comet for 40 years and was given a standing ovation at the ceremony in the Guildhall, where she made one of her first public appearances since the accident.