Driver jailed for nine years after killing student while being pursued by police
A DRIVER who treated city centre streets as a “racetrack” while being pursued by police has been jailed for nine years for causing the death of a student.
Joshua Gregory, 28, was travelling at speeds in excess of 80mph in a 30mph area when he drove through a red light and hit 31-year-old Sri Lankan national Oshada Jayasundera, who was crossing the road, in the early hours of December 13 last year, Nottingham Crown Court heard.
Sentencing him, Recorder Paul Mann KC, said: “You were treating the city centre road as if it was a racetrack.”
Richard Thatcher, prosecuting, said Gregory had taken the Ford Focus ST from the motor dealership where he worked.
Gregory, of Kirkby-inashfield, Nottinghamshire, had been given permission to use a Fiat 500 by his employer but had not been told he could drive the Focus, which had already been sold and for which he was not insured.
When police spotted the car at 3.10am and turned on their blue lights Gregory pulled into a petrol station but then “accelerated rapidly” away from them.
The court heard that 10 minutes later he was seen by other officers, who pursued him after he turned the wrong way down a one-way street.
Footage from the police car then showed it reach speeds of 78mph as it tried to catch up with the Ford Focus along Huntingdon Street.
Mr Jayasundera, a
Master’s student at Nottingham Trent University, was returning from a party with friends as he walked across a pedestrian crossing, the court heard.
Mr Mann said: “You struck your victim as he was crossing the third lane. The force of the collision was such as to propel his body 46 metres. That in itself speaks to the speed you were travelling at that point.”