Harrowing moment driver ploughs into crowd killing two teen pals after ‘showing off’ at car meet
THIS is the harrowing moment a driver killed two teen pals after ploughing into pedestrians while “showing off” at a car meet.
Liberty Charris, 16, and Ben Corfield, 19, were killed when the modified Nissan Skyline smashed into them in Oldbury, West Midlands.
Two other teens were seriously injured during the horror – including one left with a collapsed lung and multiple fractures.
Dhiya Al Maamoury, 56, has been jailed for 13-and-a-half years after pleading guilty to causing death and serious injury by dangerous driving.
Wolverhampton Crown Court heard a group of pedestrians were gathered on the A457 for a car meet when the horror unfolded.
Prosecutor Michelle Heeley KC said the car had been modified so the exhaust would spit fire and had a turbo engine fitted.
Footage released by police showed Al Maamoury driving between 54 and 57mph on the 40mph stretch of road before “fishtailing”.
He then lost control completely and crashed into a group of pedestrians – leaving other spectators watching on in horror.
Ms Heeley said: “The cause of this collision was not that he was driving too fast, although clearly he was speeding. Other vehicles had driven at faster speeds on this same stretch.
“What caused this was the defendant accelerating excessively, as he booted it the back end of his car lost traction with the road and he then began to head towards the central reservation. He tried to over correct and lost control completely.
“He wasn’t under the influence of alcohol or drugs. What he was doing was cruising and showing off, driving dangerously in an area full of pedestrians.”
When he was arrested, Al Maamoury claimed he had taken his sons to the meet as they liked to take pictures of all the cars.
He also denied speeding and said the car went on the kerb “by itself” as he made a U-turn to go home.
But the court heard Snapchat and CCTV exposed his lies – with the driver seen revving his accelerator before joining the dual carriageway.
In an emotional victim impact statement, Liberty’s mum Tracy Charris wept as she paid tribute to her “larger than life” daughter.
She said: “I had always wanted a little girl and from the moment she was born, it was me and her against the world. I would have died for her.
“She was so bright and bubbly, she loved everything and everyone. Her absence is deafening.
“I am so full of hate it consumes me. I am truly devastated by the loss of my Liberty and it is too much to bear.”
Ben’s dad Damian Corfield told how his life ended the night Al Maamoury killed his son.
He said: “He was struck down on the pavement where he should have been safe. He didn’t come home. He will never come home.
“The son we had waited for for so long was gone forever. The reason I lived was taken away from me. The son I cherished and loved so dearly is gone.
“My son, my best mate, my business partner and confidant. All I do is count down the days until I can be with him again.”
Car meets are a 'scourge of the earth' - Victim's grieving dad speaks out
Speaking beside wife Lynette, and with a pin badge of his son’s face attached to his suit lapel, Ben’s dad Damian said: “We’ve all seen these type of car meets advertised out there. They are a danger to all road users and they seem to have progressed over the last 12 or 18 months.
“The incident that took Ben’s life at Oldbury, there is an injunction there now and West Midlands Police are certainly making a strong stance on that to stamp this practice out.
“You should be able to, as a pedestrian, be awarded that safety and we applaud the work that West Midlands Police are doing.”
While the sentencing “hasn’t delivered a conclusion for us as a family”, Damian said he believed the judge had set a precedent with his sentence.
He said: “Ben’s gone, we’ve lost our son, the light of our lives. Nothing will take that pain away, and it’s the most excruciating, heart-wrenching pain, every second of the day.
“(The sentence) was far more than what us four families were expecting, and this has got to be a warning to anybody that’s involved in this type of action, that it won’t be tolerated.
“This guy showed no remorse so we are certainly happy with the sentence today, but even if it was life, it couldn’t make us feel any better, but we do appreciate the sentence today and everybody that has been involved in it.”
Speaking of his son, the dad said he was a “miracle” who completed their family.
He said: “(Al Maamoury) has taken our lives away. The pain and devastation as a father, a mother and a sister, we cant settle. We wake up and we’re calling for him.
“Al Maamoury has been given his sentence but we’ve got a life sentence and we have to deal with that now for whatever time we have left.”
As well as a jail sentence, Al Maamoury was also given a 14 year driving ban.
Judge Michael Chambers KC said: “You deliberately carried out a highly dangerous manoeuvre in order to show off to the crowd by accelerating hard in a Nissan that you had deliberately modified in order to increase its power.
“You did so in clear close proximity to a crowd of spectators who had lined the road and included the four victims in this case.
“As a result you lost control of your car with catastrophic results. To bury a child is a parent’s worse nightmare.
“No sentence that I can impose can possibly put the clock back, nor should it be seen as an attempt to put value on the loss of life.”