Driver facing jail for crash that killed four-month-old baby
A 30-year-old man has been warned jail is ‘inevitable’ after he admitted causing the death of a four-month-old child through dangerous driving.
Reuben Johnson changed his plea to guilty as his trial was about to start at Wolverhampton Crown Court.
His BMW crossed to the opposite carriageway while travelling at twice the speed limit along Birmingham Road in Walsall, near its junction with Charlemont Road, on August 19 last year.
It went head on into a Ford Focus in which Malia Porter was travelling with her parents.
The child is understood to have been on her mother’s lap when tragedy struck.
Mr Gurdeep Garcha, defending, commented: “This was a a short-lived burst of bad driving although it involved very significant speed.
"The defendant himself was seriously injured and I would wish to put forward some evidence about his injuries and recovery.”
The lawyer continued that since the BMW had no mechanical fault the only possible explanation for the behaviour of the driver was that he had been distracted shortly before the accident.
Mr Tariq Shakoor, prosecuting, told the court: “The speed and deliberate moving onto the opposing carriageway gave the oncoming vehicle no opportunity to avoid a collision.”
He suggested the ‘distraction’ being blamed for the fatality could be linked to a Vauxhall car seen in the area at the time.
Mr Shakoor maintained: “It was overtaking vehicles while travelling at speed in the same direction as the defendant.”
It was behind the BMW when the two cars stopped at a junction close to where the crash occurred, it was said.
When the lights changed Johnson, who did not appear to have been driving dangerously up to this point, ‘accelerated off at considerable speed with the Vauxhall accelerating to a similar degree, although slightly slower,’ said the prosecutor who proposed something happened between the two motorists which prompted the defendant to drive much faster than previously.
CCTV analysis concluded that the BMW was travelling at between 60 and 66 mph in a 30 limit moments before the impact, while the following Vauxhall slowed considerably before driving past the scene without stopping. The driver has not been traced.
Johnson, from Hewitt Street, Darlaston was banned from driving and given bail until the sentencing hearing on a date to be fixed.
Judge John Wait told him: “You have pleaded guilty to a very serious offence and a prison sentence is absolutely inevitable in this case.”
