Man jailed for fatal crash after moor shoot

ASHOOTING party guest has been jailed after he killed a friend in a car crash having drunk port and taken cocaine.

Jake Melhuish was driving from the shoot on the edge of Exmoor with 23-year-old father-to-be Trevor Coates as his passenger when his car veered off a country road and hit a tree.

Mr Coates was killed instantly and his girlfriend, Chloe Gilbert, has been left heartbroken by his death. Their daughter, Ivy, was born a month later and she has been left to raise the child as a single mother.

Both Melhuish and Mr Coates had spent the day at a pre-Christmas shooting party near East Anstey, Devon, at which ten friends had drunk port for breakfast and more port and beer with meals. Some of the men, including Melhuish, had taken cocaine and at the time of the crash, at 5.21pm, he was just under twice the drink drive limit for alcohol. The cocaine in his body had broken down by time he was tested five hours later, but he had nine times the safe level of the metabolite BZE.

The organisers of the shoot had arranged designated drivers and the party was moving from one farmhouse to another when Melhuish decided it was too cramped as a back seat passenger and decided to drive his own car.

Witnesses described him as showing off as he left the farmyard with wheels spinning on the gravel, and his Volkswagen Bora was out of sight of the following cars when he crashed a few miles away. He lost control on a slight bend and crashed into two trees, one of which caused fatal head injuries to Mr Coates. His decision to drive was described as “criminal stupidity” by a judge at Exeter Crown Court.

Victim Mr Coates was a popular player at Wiveliscombe Rugby Club who worked as an agricultural engineer and plumber. He and Chloe had just moved into a cottage at Winsford, on Exmoor, to prepare for the birth of their daughter.

In a victim personal statement read in court, she said she had needed counselling and treatment to help her cope with the loss. She had had to move out of the house because she could not afford the rent without his income.

She said: “I waited for Trevor to return, but he never did. Receiving the news made me physically sick and I went to hospital as I feared all the stress would affect the health of my unborn child. The thought of the future without him seems impossible.”

Melhuish, aged 22, of Sheldon, near Honiton, admitted causing Mr Coates’s death by careless driving while over the limit for alcohol and benzoylecgonine.

Judge David Evans jailed him for two years and two months, and he will be banned from driving for three years following his release. The judge told him: “No sentence I pass can ever repair the loss and hurt that your offences have caused. Others questioned the wisdom when you got into your own car; perhaps it is a shame they did not object more. It was perfectly plain that in the light of what you had drunk and consumed that you should not be driving but the decision to drive was yours and yours alone.”

Adrian Chaplin, prosecuting, said the crash happened on a bend on the B3227 near Blackerton Cross, East Anstey. Tom Bradnock, defending, said Melhuish had been racked by guilt and remorse and the consequences would live with him for the rest of his life.