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Death crash teenager not guilty

An 18-year-old has been cleared of killing four friends by dangerous driving days after passing his test.

The jury at Cardiff Crown Court did find Craig Ramshaw, of Ebbw Vale, guilty of careless driving and he was given a conditional discharge.

Ramshaw was driving along a mountain road in Powys, at around 2100 GMT on 2 November 2006, when he lost control.

Backseat passengers Danielle Caswell, Katie Roberts, both 15, and Louise Jones and Kayleigh Parry, 16, all died.

Ramshaw was also been banned from driving for two years and will have to retake his test.

Judge Nicholas Cooke QC told him: "Human life is priceless and I feel it would be interpreted as an insult to the memory of the four girls if I imposed a financial penalty on you.

"As a result of your careless driving, four young lives have been lost and four families will never be the same again.

"You will have to bear responsibility for that for the rest of your life and that is a terrible burden."

Ramshaw, an apprentice plumber, had always denied causing the girls' deaths by dangerous driving.

The six-day trial heard how three days after passing his driving test, the teenager was driving along a mountain road - B4560 between Garnlydan and Llangynidr - when he lost control and the car flipped over.

'Quite persistent'

He told the court he was not driving at more than 40mph when he felt his back wheel skid.

The girls - all close friends at Glyncoed Comprehensive in Ebbw Vale - were thrown from the vehicle.

They were not wearing seatbelts, unlike Ramshaw and a front seat passenger, who survived with minor injuries.

The prosecution claimed that Ramshaw was "showing off" as he drove his mother's car at "considerable speed".

The jury has also heard evidence from Ramshaw, who said he felt "pressurised" to take the girls for a ride in the Vauxhall Corsa.

The teenager said he had offered to take the girls out before his friend asked him to pick him up, and that he did not want to drive with all of them in the car.

On Monday, jurors were asked by the defence to find Ramshaw guilty on a lesser charge of careless driving.

In his summing up on Tuesday, Judge Nicholas Cooke QC told them: "No case can have a sadder context than this one.

"You must completely put aside sympathy on the one hand for the terrible loss four families have suffered, and the nightmare this trial must be for the defendant and his family."

'Hell and back'

But he said the decision was whether Ramshaw's driving had been careless or dangerous and they must judge it entirely on the facts.

Patrick Harrington QC, defending, asked the jury if Ramshaw's driving fell below the standard expected of an ordinary competent driver, in which case he said it was careless.

Or was it, he asked, "far" below that standard - in which case, it was dangerous.

He invited the jury to conclude that days after passing his driving test, Ramshaw had made a minor error - turning the wheel slightly too far on a bend - which had resulted in the deaths and had wrecked the lives of many families.

He stressed to the jury that the police driver who had given evidence for the prosecution, had himself conceded that a minor error could have caused the crash.

Ramshaw's own family, he said, had "been to hell and back".

As the jury returned their verdict, Ramshaw sat in the dock with his head bowed and broke down.

Reacting to the verdicts, a statement on behalf of the girls' families thanked "all those involved for their tremendous help and support during this difficult time."

It continued: "Unfortunately, this outcome will not bring the girls back. The families' lives also ended on the 2nd November 2006.

"As parents we were unable to control the situation and take care of our precious girls. Never again will (our) lives be the same."

The judge passed comment that young drivers in particular must always be aware of the dangers of "speeding"

The girls - all close friends at Glyncoed Comprehensive in Ebbw Vale - were thrown from the vehicle.

They were not wearing seatbelts, unlike Ramshaw and a front seat passenger, who survived with minor injuries.

Another crucial point.

There were SIX people IN A CORSA!!

(My Landcruiser is only rated at seven, and I could probabally put a corsa in the back )

I shudder to think what effect that would have had on the handling!

The danger is surly not one of "Speeding" but of dangerously overloading a small vehicle.

Would it have been overloaded though? Given that a Corsa can legally seat three people in the back, would having one more shoehorned in there have made any more of a difference to the handling than, say, a large weekly shop packed into the boot, or a full tank of petrol? What if all five people in the car were all a bit heavier, thus taking their combined weight up to the same as the combined weight of these six? I'm not condoning the carriage of more people than you have sets of seatbelts, but that's a different issue to carrying more mass than the vehicle is designed to carry.

Four 10-stone girls would weigh about the same as three 13-stone blokes.

What is more, the reason why the girls wernt wearing seatbelts was likly to be because with 4 of them across the back seat they were not able to!

THATS overloading too, regardless of how heavy they were!