Man jailed after high-speed road race in which his friend was killed
ADRIVER involved ‘in a deadly duel’ with a motorcyclist who crashed into a lamp post suffering catastrophic injuries in Runcorn has been jailed for four years.
Aiden Davies, 26, a dadof-two, died at the scene of the tragedy on an exit road from the Central Expressway after a highspeed race with his friend Paul Simon Green, of Falcons Way, Hallwood Park.
Liverpool Crown Court heard that part of the expressway was limited to 40mph because of road works and as Mr Davies sped along at twice that limit Green kept pace in his modified Ford Focus RS Turbo.
Judge Denis Watson QC said that witnesses described them as so close together it was as if ‘you were one along that piece of carriageway’.
Jailing Green, the judge said that both men were using high powered vehicles and just before they entered the expressway ‘and without needing to speak to each other you challenged each other to a short, high speed and unhappily, deadly duel’.
“As you went into the slip road you were at high speed following Aiden Davies’s motorbike. You drove onto the expressway and were both heading off at the next slip road.
“The bike was ahead of you moving at, I find, at least 80 mph and may well have been faster. As you said yourself in your own estimate in interview possibly even 90-100mph.”
He told Green: “I accept your driving was not the sole cause of Mr Davies’ s death. By choosing to ride in the way he did he was at least an equal cause ... each of you had taken up each other’s challenge but where you bear responsibility is because you were driving so close behind him.”
He pointed out that Mr Davies, who was riding a 1200cc Suzuki ‘street fighter style’ motorbike, was vulnerable because he was on a motorcycle rather than in a car.
As Mr Davies went round a bend on the exit slip road ‘his speed was too high and he lost control of the bike as he tried to bank to the left and slid at high speed himself colliding with a lamppost’.
He said that Green was so close behind he could not stop and because their vehicles were on different trajectories they did not collide. Green stopped as soon as he could and called an ambulance.
The judge added that their challenge to each other not only risked their own lives but those of other road users.
He banned Green from driving for seven years and he will have to take an extended driving test before he can get back behind the wheel.
The court heard he has one previous conviction which involved a £135 fine for speeding in a 30mph zone.
Green, who works as a plant operator at Birkenhead docks, pleaded not guilty to causing death by dangerous driving and denied they were racing and denied being close together but a jury of five women and seven men took just 50 minutes to find him guilty.
In an impact statement the victim’s heartbroken mum Julie Wood said: “Aiden’s death has left me completely and utterly devastated, it’s a living hell and at times I feel I’m living in disbelief.
“I feel completely empty inside, I don’t feel anything. I have shut myself down and I can’t ever see that going away.
“I’m just existing at the moment and each day is a huge effort for me, which I struggle to get through.
“Aiden was a huge, huge part of my life, he was my first boy and we had a very special bond, we were very close in our own way.
“There is a huge vast part of my family that is missing in our lives and our home.”
During the trial the jury heard that the tragedy happened mid evening on Saturday, August 2, 2015.
Eyewitness Sean Jennings, who told the court how the two vehicles appeared from nowhere behind them, and then came across Mr Davies on the ground, was commended by Judge Watson for trying to help the victim. ●