MUMS UNITE
Booze road toll is up by 20%
HAND in hand, three mums stand tall with the boys who caught their sons’ callous hit-and-run killer.
They are united in grief and have one wish – justice for the lads they lost.
The lives of Nicola Sales-Rice, Tracy Blackwell and Sarah Baker were shattered one freezing day in January.
Harry Rice, 17, Josh McGuinness, 16, and George Wilkinson, 16, were on their way to a birthday party when they were killed instantly by a speeding driver who was drunk and high on cannabis.
Kai Priestley, 17, and Lewis White, 16, survived – and chased down Jaynesh Chudasama, 28, and his passenger as they tried to flee their wrecked Audi.
Today the teenagers and mums demand stiffer sentences for dangerous drivers who take lives.
Josh’s mother Tracy said: “If you get into a car when you’re drunk and you cause a death, that death is premeditated. You know that you could kill yourself and kill others.
“If you still do it, it’s not an accident, it’s murder. Chudasama has only been given 13 years which would be the sentence for one killing in this way. It’s as if two of our boys lives didn’t matter.
BRAVERY
“We are devastated but so are Lewis and Kai and they are here to speak for their friends who no longer have a voice.
“They caught the killer when they had only narrowly missed the same fate as our boys and their bravery will stay with us always. Now we want the lives of our boys and the bravery of their friends to be honoured – and for killers to get the sentences they deserve. Together we have hope we can make a change.”
Tracy told Chudasama to “rot in hell” as he was sentenced to 13 years at the Old Bailey last Wednesday. The court heard he drove “like a bat out of hell” through Hayes, West London.
He overtook a car, misjudged the manoeuvre and hit Harry, George and Josh at 71mph.
Josh was sent flying into an adjacent cemetery. George was flung into the road, while Harry was carried along on the bonnet of the Audi until it crashed into a wall.
Stunned Kai and Lewis reacted instinctively. In a harrowing recollection, Kai said: “We were walking, then we heard this big bang, then silence.
“We knew Josh, George and Harry were dead. It was terrible. I remember Lewis being in front of me and the other three, Harry, Josh and George, were to the right, nearest to the road.”
Trainee electrician Lewis How Mirror reported crash MORE than 70,000 people are caught drink driving on UK roads every year.
And casualties are at a three-year high, with booze reckoned to be to blame for 12 per cent of all road deaths in England and Wales.
The most recent Department of Transport figures show that around 240 people died in accidents with motorists who were over the legal alcohol limit in 2016, up 20 per cent from 200 in 2015.
The drink-drive limit in England and Wales is currently at 80 milligrammes of alcohol per 100ml of blood.
Causing death by careless driving while under the influence of drink or drugs can attract a prison sentence of up to 14 years as well as an
unlimited fine. said of the Audi pair: “They started running so we chased them. We detained the driver and walked back with him so he didn’t go anywhere. “The police praised us. They said it would have been difficult to catch them.” Harry’s mum Nicola, 38, said: “We are really thankful to the boys. The driver would have absconded. He could still be out there on the roads.”