‘Snapchat’ racer lost control of car, killing his friend
ASPEEDING driver trying to reach 100mph so his friends could post a clip on Snapchat lost control of his car, which then smashed into a wall, killing a teenage passenger.
Ricafort Gamboa raced along country roads near Aberystwyth, taking corners on the wrong side of the carriageway, while friends inside his car filmed him on their phones.
As he approached 100mph his Citroen C3 left the road and smashed into a cottage, demolishing a 16in-thick stone wall.
His friend, 18-year-old Ernest Pideli, was killed and two other passengers were injured.
Domino’s pizza worker Gamboa, 25, admitted causing death and serious injury by dangerous driving and was jailed for four years.
Paul Hobson, prosecuting, told Swansea Crown Court that the group had been returning to Manchester after a holiday at a caravan site in Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, on July 15 last year.
Gamboa’s friends could be heard on mobile phones recovered from the crashed car encouraging him to drive faster and he began taking corners on the wrong side of the road.
Gamboa was recorded saying: “I am going fast. I will go faster.”
But as he raced downhill into a series of corners, he said “Oh s***” as the car fishtailed, mounted a bank, then swerved across the road and into a cottage by the side of the A487 at Chancery a few miles south of Aberystwyth.
Mr Pideli died four days later from head and neck injuries.
Gamboa told a police officer at the scene that he had been doing “more than 90” and explained later that his friends had wanted him to reach 100mph so they could take photographs for Snapchat.
He said in a police interview: “I take full responsibility for what happened. My stupid decision to drive so fast was the cause of the collision. I deserve to be punished. I am deeply sorry for what happened.”
The court heard that Mr Pideli had been a talented footballer and had an ambition of returning to his native Philippines and playing for the national team.
Gamboa’s barrister, Charles Row, said he was so remorseful that he was genuine when he said he wished he had died rather than his friend.
Mr Row said at one point police had considered charging his friends for their encouragement of him to drive faster just so they could film him and the speedometer.
Judge Keith Thomas told Gamboa, who wept as he was being sentenced, that he had used the road as a racetrack.
“You drove at breakneck speed, saying you were trying to reach 100 miles an hour. And you ignored signs telling you to slow down and that there were bends ahead.
“Your friend was only 18 and had his whole life in front of him. You have caused incalculable loss to his family.”
Gamboa, a Domino pizza restaurant shift manager, of Johnson Fold Avenue, Bolton, was banned from driving for five years after his eventual release from prison.