100mph Porsche death driver gets seven years

12:50pm Friday 5th September 2008

A “callous and selfish” lorry driver has been jailed for seven years for wrecking a Porsche at 100mph and blaming his friend who was killed by the crash.

Barry Sylvester Holmes, 33, put Richard Whitelock’s devastated family through 15 months of further anguish before finally admitting he was at the wheel of the blue Carrera 911 GT3.

A jury at Leeds Crown Court convicted Holmes of causing Gargrave man Mr Whitelock’s death by dangerous driving.

He had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to perverting the court of justice by persistently lying to police that he was a passenger in the sports car.

After the case, Mr Whitelock’s family issued a statement, saying: “We are happy Richard’s name has been cleared. We have needlessly suffered for two years because of Holmes’s lies.”

The court heard that the Porsche belonged to Mr Whitelock but he had allowed Holmes to drive it from Gildersome towards Bradford.

During the trial, prosecutor Andrew Dallas told how the Porsche was doing more than 100mph when Holmes lost control. It left the carriageway, struck a lamppost and rolled three times before flipping onto its roof.

Mr Whitelock, 21, of River Place, Gargrave, suffered multiple injuries and died in hospital the next day. The court heard that the young man was trapped in the upturned car when Holmes first insisted he was not driving it.

It was only after 15 months and almost £80,000 had been spent on a police inquiry that he finally owned up.

Judge Geoffrey Marson QC told Holmes, of Chelker House Farm, Addingham, he was driving at a grossly excessive speed when he crashed on the A650 Drighlington bypass late on July 19, 2006.

But Holmes told the jury he had been driving the car safely and denied suggestions he had been showing off.

He confirmed that he and his friends had an interest in high-performance cars and on the day of the fatal crash he been out with one of them who had just got an Aston Martin.

Holmes said he had drunk two lager shandies and two pints of lager before he agreed to drive Mr Whitelock’s Porsche into Bradford to continue their night out.

He said he felt fine and remembered passing his friend’s stationary Aston Martin as he approached a large roundabout.

He told the jury he did not know how fast he was travelling as he left the roundabout. “I can remember driving along and feeling the rear of the car dip and I don’t recall anything after that,” he said.

Holmes, who spent a week in hospital, said the next thing he recalled was sitting on the grass banking and a friend running across telling him not to get up.

During cross-examination, Holmes said he did not know why he had lied to the police about the fact that he had been driving, but he later claimed to have received death threats following the fatal crash.

“I was afraid to go out of my family home,” said Holmes.

“I was afraid to drive my own lorries. I had to move away from the area. I had to stay with my girlfriend to be away from it all. I was scared.”

He said he had eventually owned up because he could not lie about it any longer. “I was beside myself with guilt and still am,” he said.

Asked whether he ever felt that he should not have been driving that night, Holmes replied: “‘In hindsight, I wish I never got in the car.”

Judge Marson said Holmes was a hard-working man with a clean driving licence at the time.

“No one here takes the view that you set out that night to cause anyone any harm,” said the judge.

But he said drink had impaired Holmes’s ability to drive and the accident would not have happened unless he was driving dangerously.

The judge said it was a human tragedy that had left Mr Whitelock’s family devastated and no term of imprisonment could begin to comfort them for the loss of a priceless life.

Judge Marson branded Holmes’s behaviour at the crash scene and afterwards as “callous and selfish”.

As well as the jail sentence, Holmes was banned from driving for seven years and must take an extended re-test before he gets behind the wheel again.

After the verdict, Mr Dallas read a victim impact statement from Mr Whitelock’s mother Sheila, in which she spoke of her son’s love of cars and relationships with his brother and sister.

She said not knowing the truth about the crash had had a devastating effect on their family and friends.