Pair left girl to die on back seat in beer drive – court

A 16-year-old girl was left to die on the back seat of a car as two men drove her around while ringing escorts and stopping to buy beer, a court heard.

A-level pupil Megan Bannister was found lying in the back of the Vauxhall Astra after the vehicle was involved in a crash near Enderby, Leicestershire, on Sunday, May 14.

Megan appeared lifeless, with witnesses describing how her “lips were blue”.

However, she had suffered no fatal injuries as a result of the collision, a Birmingham Crown Court jury was told yesterday.

The driver, Jason Burder, and passenger, Adam King, both 28, are accused of the girl’s manslaughter by gross negligence by supplying her with MDMA, strangling her and then neglecting her life-threatening condition.

Prosecutors have alleged Burder and King plied the teenager with alcohol and Ecstasy in the early hours of that Sunday, hours before the crash happened.

The Crown claimed a Snapchat video, possibly shot in Burder’s bedroom that day and sent to others on social media, showed Megan “out of it” and apparently “fitting”, according to those who watched it.

Jurors were told they would hear from one girl who, when she saw the footage of Megan, told Burder, “you spiked her, like you spiked me”.

A pathologist concluded two potential causes of death were either “strangulation or a drug overdose”, however, they were unable to pinpoint the precise mechanism.

Burder, of Braunstone Avenue, and King, of Waltham Avenue, Leicester, deny wrongdoing and the trial continues.