'Boy racer' Dean Collins jailed for killing five-year-old stepson in head-on crash

A "boy racer" who killed his five-year-old stepson and seriously injured four others in a head-on crash has been jailed for six years.

Dean Collins, 23, drifted into the opposite carriageway in the crash in Llandaff, Cardiff, after taking cocaine.

He was also seen holding his mobile phone to his ear.

Collins' stepson, Joseph Smith, was not sat in a child booster seat as required by law and died at the scene from neck injuries following the crash in September 2015.

Four other people sustained a range of injuries from fractures to the spine, arms, legs and ribs, as well as memory loss and blindness in one eye.

Collins, who had passed his driving test just three months earlier, smashed into another car after straying into the opposite carriageway, Cardiff Crown Court heard.

Judge Eleri Rees said Collins, who had probably taken cocaine the night before and was four times over the legal limit for the drug, had "displayed arrogance" with his "aggressive" driving before the collision.

Witnesses told police Collins was undertaking, weaving in and out of the lanes, rocking his car while waiting at traffic lights and driving off quickly from them.

They called Collins, who denied the charges and said he had no memory of the crash, a "boy racer, idiot, a***hole", the court heard.

Laura Bright, his partner, who married him after the collision, sat in the front passenger seat while her son Joseph sat in the back middle seat next to their two-year-old child, who was in a child booster seat, and their grandmother Michelle Holmes.

Collins, of St Mellons, Cardiff, was convicted of causing death by dangerous driving and was also found guilty of causing serious injury by dangerous driving of two passengers in his own car and two passengers in another car.

As well as the jail term, he was also disqualified from driving for eight years by the judge who told him: "You told the jury you had no memory of the collision. You have never acknowledged any fault despite overwhelming evidence that the collision was entirely your fault."