Judge condemns motorist who sped off after killing boy, 15, with stolen car

A 25-YEAR-OLD motorist who sped off after killing a 15-year-old boy while driving at up to twice the speed limit in a stolen car acted in a “comprehensively deplorable” way, a judge has said.

Sheffield Crown Court was shown shocking footage of the moment Ryan Durkin was hit by a silver BMW driven by Mitchel Hughes as he crossed a road with friends in Rotherham.

The car, which had false number plates, then sped off without stopping as Sheffield United fan Ryan was also hit by second car.

The dramatic CCTV footage showed the teenager’s shoe landing outside a nearby pub a considerable distance from the impact and the BMW moving away with a smashed-in windscreen.

Yesterday, sentencing Hughes to six years and seven months in prison, Judge Jeremy Richardson, QC, said the defendant, who has never held a driving licence, had “no regard whatsoever for the laws of this country”.

The judge said Hughes

“made almost no endeavour to stop” before colliding with

Ryan and, “unimpaired by any scruples whatsoever, cowardly drove off afterwards”.

Accident investigators found that the BMW was travelling at between 48mph and 60mph in the 30mph limit at the time of impact, although a witness estimated the speed at around 80mph or 90mph.

The judge told Hughes: “Your behaviour was comprehensively deplorable.”

Judge Richardson declined to read out the list of Ryan’s “grievous” injuries in court, and some members of the teenager’s family left the courtroom before the video footage was played.

He said Ryan’s death was an “unparalleled catastrophe” for his family whose lives “have been ruined forever”.

The judge heard how, when police came to Hughes’s flat to arrest him, he had been apparently drinking and taking drugs, threatening to jump off a balcony as he refused to let the officers in.

But Judge Richardson said that, while some may speculate that he had been drinking or had taken drugs at the time he was driving, there was no evidence to show this and he did not sentence him on that basis.

Hughes, of Wingfield,

Rotherham, admitted causing death by dangerous driving at a previous hearing and was given a five-and-a-half-year prison sentence for this offence as well as being banned from driving for 12 years.

He was given a further

12 months in prison for perverting the course of justice following an unrelated incident in which he gave the details of someone else when he was stopped in a car with false plates.

The innocent man whose name he gave was prosecuted and given six penalty points, the court heard.

Hughes, who has 16 convictions involving 23 separate offences recorded against him, was also jailed for an additional month after a suspended sentence was triggered.