If it takes a big man to admit he was wrong, then 66-year-old Doug Lamb is dwarfed by the 10-year-old Pittsford boy he clipped last summer with the Range Rover he was driving.

Police reports and court papers illustrate why.

Julian Moore was riding his bicycle in his neighborhood along Kilbourn Road on Sept. 7 when he collided with the passenger side of the white Range Rover that was attempting to pass him on the left.

The boy went down. He screamed. Neighbors ran to his aid. An ambulance was called. Julian was released with minor scrapes and bruises and a mangled Diamondback bike. His mother said he was later diagnosed with a mild concussion.

Behind the wheel was Lamb, who had just finished a round of golf at nearby Oak Hill Country Club. Witnesses described him as driving slowly.

Lamb stopped the car, but didn’t stick around until police arrived. He didn’t identify himself to Julian or the paramedics or the boy’s mother, Jenny Moore, who was summoned to the scene. He never reported the accident.

It would take two weeks for police to catch up with Lamb at his Canandaigua lakefront home and charge him with a misdemeanor for leaving the scene of an accident causing personal injury.

That day, according to police reports, Lamb told the investigating officer he had “checked on” Julian, waited on scene for 30 minutes, and left only after he heard Moore decline treatment for her son, “believing there was no need to further stay at the scene.”

But police reports show the ambulance was summoned at 4:54 p.m. and arrived at 5:02 p.m. Police got there at 5:12 p.m., at which point Lamb had already split.

The case wound up in Pittsford Town Court, where a plea deal was struck on Dec. 6.

Lamb wanted the charge thrown out. The prosecution wanted Lamb to perform community service and write a letter of apology to Julian.

Town Justice John Bernacki declined the community service, citing Lamb’s age and physical condition, which was robust enough for him to be an avid golfer.

But Bernacki agreed to dismiss the charge in exchange for an apology letter to Julian. Lamb started writing immediately.

“Dear Julian,” his letter read. “I’m very sorry that you rode into the side of the car I was driving on Friday, September 7th. More importantly, I am glad you didn’t need to be treated by the attending ambulance on the day of the incident. Wishing you a safe and happy holiday season. Sincerely, Doug Lamb.”

Talking to Julian, you wouldn’t know what hit him harder — the Range Rover or Lamb's backhanded apology.

“I was angry, really angry, actually,” Julian recalled. “I was really upset with it.

“He accused me of riding into the side of his car, which didn’t really happen,” the fifth-grader continued. “He came up from behind me.”

There’s a word for what Lamb wrote. It’s called a non-apology, or a fauxpology. They’re so ubiquitous in politics and public relations that they have their own Wikipedia page.

Non-apologizers feign contrition in a way that minimizes their accountability. Instead of exhibiting empathy with their victims, they blame them. The non-apologizer’s aim isn’t atonement but rather limiting their liability and damage to their image.

It may already be too late for Lamb’s image.

The Range Rover he was driving belonged to a friend, who police reports show traded in the vehicle “due to the bad image it would bring on him” at Oak Hill. Lamb didn’t tell his friend about the accident until his friend inquired, according to police.

In legal terms, the case against Lamb was “adjourned in contemplation of dismissal” on the condition that he write an apology.

That means the judge gave himself time to think hard about whether the charge ought to be thrown out and whether Lamb made a good-faith effort to meet his obligations to the court.

What Lamb wrote was an insult to the authority of the court, not to mention a 10-year-old boy who got hit by a car. The court deserves better, and so does Julian.

By law, the court has six months to reconsider dismissing the charge and put the case back on the calendar, at the request of the prosecution.

This week, after the Democrat and Chronicle made inquiries into the case, Bernacki scheduled a hearing for Thursday to discuss the matter.

But the hearing never took place. After a conference with the attorneys in chambers, the judge rescheduled the hearing for Feb. 14.

An adjournment in contemplation of dismissal is not a conviction or admission of guilt, and it seems clear that Lamb took pains in his letter to avoid the latter.

Lamb did not return a message left for him.

Who is to blame isn’t really the issue, though.

Julian was protected by a plastic helmet. Lamb was encased in 5,000 pounds of steel. If Lamb’s recollection of driver’s ed didn’t tell him to tend to Julian and report the accident, his conscience should have.

Paramedics on the scene told police that Julian demonstrated for them how the accident happened.

They said the 10-year-old described swerving to avoid a parked truck and a pair of manholes, and recalled him saying, “It was probably both our faults because we didn’t notice one another.”

It took a big man to do that.

David Andreatta is a Democrat and Chronicle columnist. He can be reached at DANDREATTA@Gannett.com.