Drug-fuelled thug ‘absolutely flying’ in faulty BMW

DRUG-FUELLED danger driver Kevin Pryce tried to blame Mia Strothers for her death.

Pryce, 45, who tested positive for cocaine and cannabis, claimed Mia had stepped out into the road before he hit her. But a witness said Pryce was ‘absolutely flying’ while driving at 57mph in a 30mph zone, and was in a BMW which he knew had faulty brakes.

Pryce drove off, leaving Mia with injuries which would prove fatal. After the crash, he told a friend that his windscreen was damaged because someone had thrown a ‘brick’ at it, then made enquiries with a garage about getting it fixed. Pryce, who has never had a licence, later handed himself in, but even when he pleaded guilty he claimed he wasn’t driving as fast as he had been when he hit Mia.

Manchester Crown Court heard how Mia, a pupil at North Manchester Academy, was on her way to school at about 8.15am.

She was crossing the road on Lightbowne Road in Moston when Pryce hit her.

“There was no way you could have failed to appreciate that you had hit a pedestrian,” Judge Hilary Manley told Pryce.

The judge said his decision to flee was ‘unforgivable’. About two hours after the crash, he waved down a police officer and told them: “About what happened this morning, the girl was looking the other way, and I have had a problem with my brakes.”

Saying he was ‘really sorry’, Pryce added: “If she (Mia) had been looking the other way I would have been able to swerve around her.”

The maximum sentence for causing death by dangerous driving is 14 years. The judge said she accepted Pryce had shown ‘some remorse’, but said his claims that he had not been driving at 57mph added to the distress of Mia’s family.