Driver high on cannabis killed six in smash at 100mph
A MOTHER, her boyfriend and their taxi driver were killed when a convicted drug dealer high on cannabis lost control of his car at 100mph and ploughed into them.
An inquest heard Lucy Davis, 43, and nuclear physicist Lee Jenkins, 42, were being driven home from a pre- Christmas night out when their taxi was hit by an Audi S3.
Audi driver Kasar Jehangir failed to take a left-hand bend and hurtled across the 40mph dual carriageway, hitting the oncoming taxi.
Jehangir, 25, had been released from jail days before and died alongside two of his three passengers, none of whom wore seatbelts.
Bags of cannabis were found in and around the smashed car while Jehangir had £1,000 cash on him.
Police Sergeant Alan Hands said ‘it would be a reasonable grounds to suspect they were in the area, dealing drugs from that car’.
Mother-of-two Mrs Davis, a trainee sign- language interpreter from Kingstanding, Birmingham, and Mr Jenkins, 42, from Harborne, were wearing seatbelts but died of multiple injuries. Cabbie Imtiaz Mohammed, a father-of-six, was also killed. Concluding that the taxi’s occupants died as a result of a crash in a Birmingham underpass on December 17 last year, the senior coroner Louise Hunt added: ‘Fundamentally, the cause of the collision was as a result of excessive speed.’
But she said that raised levels of the chemical THC, from cannabis, found in Jehangir’s system ‘contributed to the manner of driving, and contributed to the collision’.
Surviving passenger Zakkria Khan, 22, from Ward End, Birmingham, denied the car’s occupants had been out dealing drugs earlier that evening after cannabis was found in the car, but was accused of being a ‘liar’ in court by a member of Mr Jenkins’ family.
Mr Khan, who was left in a coma following the crash, admitted smoking cannabis that night, but said he could not remember the accident.
Three of the four people in the Audi including the driver suffered catastrophic head injuries. Such was the violence of the 87mph impact, two exited via the car’s sunroof and two via the boot.
The other men in the Audi, Tauqeer Hussain, 26, and Mohammed Fahsha, 30, were both neighbours in Small Heath, Birmingham.
Jehangir had recently been released from prison having received a 34-month sentence for two counts of dangerous driving and possession
‘If only he had stayed in prison’
of heroin with intent to supply. Speaking afterwards, Mr Jenkins’ mother, Anne, 64, called for new legislation to increase the maximum sentence for the most serious death by driving cases from the current 14-year penalty, to life.
She said: ‘The owner of the car had been in prison for speeding at 130mph but he had just come out of prison released early. If only he had stayed in prison for his full sentence Lee and Lucy would be alive today. We all died that day.’