- Published
A speeding driver has been jailed for two years after he caused the death of a passenger in a taxi when he crashed into the vehicle in Leicester.
Thomas Goulty killed grandmother Donna Brighton when she was thrown from the taxi through an open window in Glenfield Road on 16 September 2023.
Brother and sister Steve and Andrea Sidsaff, who were also passengers in the back of the taxi, were seriously injured in the collision, Leicester Crown Court heard.
On Friday, Goulty, 36, of Aikman Avenue, Leicester, was sentenced after admitting causing Brighton's death and causing serious injuries to the other passengers by careless driving.
'Combined bad driving'
The court heard Goulty drank two lagers before he drove his silver Vauxhall Astra at 64mph in a residential 30mph limit area before crashing into 69-year-old Sarwar Mohammad's Peugeot Expert Tepee taxi.
Mohammad, of Willow Brook Road in Leicester, who had been driving the taxi and admitted the same offences, was handed a six-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, and told he must do 100 hours of unpaid work.
Prosecutor Steven Bailey told the court Brighton did not know the Sidsaffs, who had come to Leicester for the Radio 2 in the Park music festival, but they shared a taxi because they were going in the same direction.
Brighton, who was from the city, had been out with her friends celebrating her 60th birthday.
Bailey said the collision happened as a result of the "combined bad driving of Thomas Goulty and Sarwar Mohammad", while the taxi was making a right turn towards Westfield Road across the central reservation of the dual carriageway.
Goulty had been out in the city and sent someone a message minutes before the crash saying he was "just out having a couple of beers", and in a roadside test immediately after the crash tested positive for alcohol in his breath, but later assessments could not conclude that he was over the driving limit.
Bailey said Goulty's speed was "excessive", up to 64mph (102km/h) on approach and 55mph at the point of impact.
"He had left himself little or no calculation time and any braking was far too late," he said.
"He drove too quickly for the road and its conditions, about twice the speed limit, having taken alcohol and in the dark."
Bailey told the court it seemed Brighton was helping Mohammad with directions as to where to turn and when to turn when he "allowed himself to become distracted".
The court heard he was driving lawfully at 25mph in the 30mph zone before he slowed to 8mph to carry out the right-hand turn, but Bailey said "crucially he did not come to a stop fully" and "did not maximise his chances of avoiding the collision".
Brighton "was thrown out of the taxi through the open window into the road", Bailey said, and suffered fatal head and chest injuries, while the other two passengers suffered serious injuries, including several fractured bones.
Barristers for both defendants told the court they are remorseful about what happened.
Sentencing the defendants, Recorder Jacob Hallam KC said: "You took Donna Brighton's life, and the people who loved her are still paying the price of that today, and you caused the Sidsaffs, as I have said, terrible injuries."
Goulty has been disqualified from driving for five years and must take an extended retest, while Mohammad was disqualified for two years but will not need to take an extended retest.
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