FINAL INSULT
12 years after crash, speeding millionaire’s son gets just 18 months jail for killing little Cerys
THE father of a girl who died after a millionaire’s speeding son ploughed into their car has called his 18-month jail term an insult.
One- year- old Cerys Edwards was paralysed in the 2006 accident and lost her battle for life nine years later.
Antonio Boparan – travelling at up to 80mph on the wrong side of a 30mph street in his mum’s £57,000 Range Rover – was jailed in 2008 for dangerous driving. He served just six months of a 21-month sentence.
Yesterday the 32-year-old heir to his family’s near-£1billion fortune pleaded guilty to a new charge of causing death by dangerous driving.
But after hearing the sentence, Cerys’s dad Gareth said: “Boparan is a child killer. He has broken our hearts.
“We’ve finally got some justice after 12 years of hell. But, in reality, he will serve around only 15 months in total for killing a child and destroying lives, which is a complete insult.
“We have a life sentence without our beautiful little girl.
“Despite suffering horrendous injuries,
Cerys never stopped
smiling. She was an absolute inspiration.”
The head-on crash in Sutton Coldfield, West Mids, ripped Cerys from her baby seat in the family’s Jeep Cherokee.
Her spine was broken, leaving her paralysed, unable to speak and needing round-the-clock care. A judge awarded her £5million compensation for the “saddest case” he had ever seen. Cerys died in Birmingham Children’s Hospital in 2015, just weeks before her 10th birthday.
Boparan, from Sutton Coldfield, was 19 at the time of the
crash. If Cerys had died immediately, he could have been jailed for up to 14 years. He had passed his test just six months before and was also caught driving at 95mph in a 50mph zone six weeks after the accident. In 2015 Boparan served a second jail term for assault after a bar brawl that left a man blinded. Outrage at his original jail term led to a change in the law following a campaign by the Daily Mirror and Gareth. ‘Cerys’s Law’ was introduced in 2011 after 13,000 readers signed a petition. It means anyone convicted of causing serious injury by dangerous driving faces up to five years instead of two
years. In a victim-impact statement yesterday, Gareth, also from Sutton Coldfield, said the crash “was the beginning of a nightmare”.
He added: “I was forced to perform CPR on my daughter because of Boparan’s selfish stupidity.”
James Sturman, defending at Bir - mingham crown court, said Boparan had post traumatic stress disorder, adding: “He feels the deepest remorse.
“He now has two children. He looks at them and it is a painful reminder of what Mr Edwards has gone through.”
But Judge Melbourne Inman QC said he had showed “an arrogant disregard for the safety of others”.
Boparan was banned from the roads for three years and nine months.
His parents, Ranjit and Baljinder, run the 2 Sisters Food Group — the third largest food company in the UK. Their wealth has been estimated at between £800million and £1.35billion.
Ranjit started work at a butcher’s shop and later took over household names like Northern Foods and Harry Ramsden’s.
He gave Cerys’s family £200,000 towards a new house following the crash involving his son.
We have a life sentence without our beautiful little girl. She was an inspiration GARETH EDWARDS DAD TO TRAGIC CERYS