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'Wild'
driver who killed 7 was reported a week ago...
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| A convicted
drink-driver who killed seven people in a car crash had been reported to
police for dangerous driving a week before. Jason Brain, 35, died
with his three passengers, including his 15-year-old daughter, when he
ploughed into an oncoming car as he overtook another vehicle. Three
of those in the car he hit died. |
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| Relatives of the
dead said Brain was a notorious 'boy-racer'. The crash, on the A429
in Gloucestershire, was just a few miles from the spot where he fled a
similar collision eight years ago. On that occasion Brain was banned
from driving for five years after admitting drink-driving and other
motoring offences. |
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| Last night, Danny
Didcote, 54, maternal grandfather of his teenage daughter Natasha, said
Brain had been seen behaving dangerously on the road a week
previously. 'Two people told police they saw him driving wildly on a
motorbike, pulling wheelies and showing off,' he said. 'If the
police had followed it up properly then all this could have been
prevented.' |
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| 'I saw him the
day before the crash and he was driving like a maniac. I was going
to report him too, but it is too late now. He gambled with all those
people's lives, and now it's those innocent people and their families who
suffer. We all have to live with what he's done and for us it's a
life sentence.' |
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| Brain's
ex-girlfriend, Lorna Didcote, Natasha's mother, was waiting to learn if
her teenage daughter was pregnant when she died. She said: 'He's
been done for loads of driving offences. He shouldn't have even been
on the road.' Mr Didcote, Lorna's father, added: 'There should be
zero tolerance for people who have done this sort of thing before.
The police and the courts have to start protecting the public.' |
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| The crash
happened as John Kirby, 53, drove his wife, daughter and grandchildren
back to their home in Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, at 9.20pm after
bingo in Moreton-in-Marsh. As Brain's Peugeot 306 over-took a Kia
Sedona, it hit the Kirbys' Volkwagan Passat head-on. |
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| Mr Kirby, a lorry
driver, was pronounced dead at the scene. His wife, Margaret, 61, a
housekeeper and a volunteer for the Royal British Legion, died in
Hospital. Their daughter Julie, 34, her nephew Adam Stone, ten, and
niece Sophie, nine, were in the back of the car. They were all freed
from the wreckage but Julie died from chest injuries on Saturday, at the
Gloucestershire Royal Hospital. |
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| The children last
night remained critically ill in Hospital. Adam who received head
injuries, had emergency surgery at Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, on
Saturday. Friends said surgeons had operated to rebuild his
face. His sister is at the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, with
serious stomach injuries. Brain, a father-of-four from
Moreton-in-Marsh, and his passengers, were pronounced dead at the
scene. His daughter was six days away from her 16th birthday. |
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'He's done it again' |
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| His cousin Ryan
Bott, 20, a window cleaner, died, along with family friend Michola Jones,
31. She had a nine-year-old daughter, Jade. Mr Bott's mother
Valerie Hornsby, 54, of Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, said: 'It's Jason's
fault. He's done it before and he's done it again. Ryan should
never have got in the car with him... it was a stupid, stupid
mistake. He's just not safe.' |
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| Natasha's uncle,
Bill Clayton-Ives, 42, said: 'Brain was the kind of bloke who was asking
to get killed every time he went out on the road... it's just a tragedy he
had to take six other people with him.' Police were last night
investigating claims that Brain could have been drinking before the crash. |
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| In August 2000,
he hit another car head-on as he tried to over-take a lorry on the same
stretch of road. The other car contained a couple and their
eight-month-old baby. The father had to be cut free and needed
hospital treatment. Brain, then 28, fled, but was traced by police. |
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| A breath test
showed he was double the legal alcohol limit. He pleaded guilty to
drink-driving, careless driving and failing to stop after an accident, and
was given a five-year ban and two years on probation. He was spared
jail, although it was his third driving offence in ten years. |
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| Gloucestershire
Police said: 'We take all reports of illegal motoring extremely
seriously.' |
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| Comment.
Time and time again these incidents involve a driver who is a 'notorious
boy-racer'... who has done these kinds of things many times in the
past. However seriously the Gloucestershire Police may take reports
of illegal motoring... there were many opportunities to do something...
and 'the system' failed to take any decisive action. |
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