Passenger jailed for causing death by dangerous driving

A millionaire businessman, John Nichols, has been jailed for causing death by dangerous driving despite not being behind the wheel in the first case of its kind in legal history. The 59 year-old, was partly responsible for the death of a young couple in a horrific 113mph crash on the A1 because he could and should have prevented the tragedy.

Nichols allowed fellow company director and partner Mary Butres, 48, to drive them both back from a day at the races in Nottingham after they had been drinking wine, the court heard. She later lost control of his Jaguar XJ8 when she hit standing water on the A1 at Great Ponton, near Grantham, in Lincolnshire, at over 110mph in torrential rain.

The Jaguar smashed into the Ford Fiesta of Mark Crompton, 20, and Jodie Brown, 19, which had broken down near the central reservation. The couple, from Grantham, and Miss Brown's brother Nick, who were walking away from the stranded car, were then themselves hit, Nottingham Crown Court was told.



The impact was so powerful that Mr Crompton and Miss Brown were catapulted all the way on to the opposite carriageway and killed. The 4.2 litre silver Jaguar's "black box" data recorder revealed Butres was travelling at 113mph, despite bad weather that had left the road covered in puddles.

A later back-calculation of her blood-alcohol level also showed she she had been almost one and a half times the legal limit at the time of the crash. Last month Butres, of St Mary's Street, Stamford, Lincs, was jailed for seven and half years after admitting two charges of causing death by dangerous driving.

Nichols, the owner of a packing firm BM Partnership Ltd of Ely, in Cambridgeshire, denied the same offences, claiming the crash was beyond his control but was convicted by a jury. Jailing him for four years yesterday, Judge John Milmo, QC, said Nichols had been aware Butres was over the drink drive limit and was driving far too fast for the conditions. The judge added: "The amount of alcohol you had consumed probably accounted for your odd behaviour at the scene where you pretended to be a barrister and sought to interfere with the police in their investigations."