Man, 20, locked up after crash killed pal
Kyle, 16, died in horror smash after they stole car
AYOUNG dad who had been travelling in a stolen car which crashed after being pursued by police in Stockport has been jailed.
Ryce Mendoza, 20, was in the passenger seat of a Toyota Yaris which was being driven by Kyle Hudson as the pair fled the scene of a burglary in Handforth, Cheshire.
Hudson suffered a serious head injury after the car, which was driven at ‘excessive speed’ crashed into the wall of a property in Bramhall in November last year.
The 16-year-old was taken to hospital where he sadly died a short time later.
Manchester Minshull Street Crown court heard that in the early hours of November 13 last year, Hudson and Mendoza attempted to burgle a three-bedroom house in the Handforth area.
Prosecutor, Myles Wilson, told the court that the homeowner had been working on his computer downstairs whilst his wife and five-year-old child slept upstairs. “The defendant and Kyle Hudson began opening the living room window which had been left ajar,” Mr Wilson said.
This movement triggered a notification on the resident’s mobile phone, and he could see the two ‘hooded males’ trying to open his living room window, Mr Wilson said.
“He ran outside shouting and the defendant and Kyle Hudson ran off,” he added.
As the victim of the attempted robbery alerted police, Mendoza and Hudson made their way to the home of an 80-yearold woman and her daughter as they slept.
The court heard that the men were able to steal the keys to the woman’s Toyota Yaris and the car was driven away.
Mr Wilson told the court that officers from Cheshire Police, who had been responding to the attempted burglary, spotted the car being driven by Kyle Hudson.
“The police began to pursue the Yaris for about two miles,” Mr Wilson said.
“It was driven at excessive speed and collided with the wall of a residential street in Bramhall,
Stockport.” Both Hudson and Mendoza were taken to Salford Royal Hospital with serious injuries following the crash.
Kyle was pronounced dead the following day on Saturday, November 14.
Following the crash, Mendoza wrote on his Facebook page: “I love you so much Kyle and I’m gonna miss you so much.”
“You was a star and always will be.
“Rest in peace to the golden boy of Stockport.”
In a victim statement read to the court, the 80-year-old victim said: “I feel violated that intruders were inside the property where myself and my daughter were sleeping.
“I don’t know what would have happened if I had woken up and found them.
“I keep thinking about what could have happened.
“My daughter has been traumatised. I was reliant on the use of the car. My mobility is not the best and I require the use of a car.”
The victim involved in the attempted burglary said: “I have been hypothesising about what they could have done to me.
“For all I know they could have been carrying weapons. My wife and daughter were asleep and I can’t begin to imagine what could have happened if they had got in.”
Mendoza’s barrister, Chudi Grant, told the court his client, who has a young daughter, had a troubled childhood and had been living in homeless shelters at the time of the offence.
“At the time he was living in accommodation sourced by the support living team from social services,” Mr Grant said.
“He had been living in homeless shelters and did not have the support many people take for granted such a stable family home.
“He has had a particularly difficult and traumatic childhood and he has been involved with mental health services.”
Mendoza, of Catherine Street, Stockport, was sentenced to 30 months in a youth offender institution after admitting burglary, attempted burglary and aggravated vehicle taking.
Sentencing, Miss Recorder Katherine Pierpoint said: “People should be able to feel safe in their own homes without worrying people like you are going to break into their homes and take things they have worked hard for whilst they sleep in their bedrooms.
“An offence of aggravated vehicle taking that then is driven in the way it was is viewed very seriously.
“The reason why has been brought home to you. Injury can be caused not just to others but those in that vehicle and that is sadly what happened in this case.”
Mendoza was also disqualified from driving for 27 months, which will begin when he is released from prison at the halfway point of his sentence.
An inquest regarding the death of Kyle Hudson is due to take place later this year.