Jail for teen driver ‘who fell asleep at the wheel’ and killed pensioner in head-on crash near Biggin Hill

A teenage waiter who said he had “fallen asleep” at the wheel when he killed a pensioner and seriously injured her husband in a head-on crash has been jailed for five years.

Rahul Pandey, 18, smashed into Angila Conington’s car as she drove her parents Shirley and David to the airport for a holiday to Spain.

Shirley Conington, 75, died instantly in the crash on the A233 near Biggin Hill, while husband David, 76, suffered serious injuries including a fractured pelvis.

Pandey said at the roadside that he had “fallen asleep” at the wheel, the Old Bailey heard, but he later insisted to police that he was “wide awake”.

After pleading guilty in court to causing death by dangerous driving and causing serious injury by dangerous driving, the teenager said he was not asleep and he had simply lost control of the car while driving too fast.

Ms Conington said her family had been “torn apart” by the tragedy and she suffers flashbacks to the “heart wrenching” moment she watched her mother die at the roadside.

Jailing Pandey, Judge Rebecca Poulet said on Friday: “You maintain you simply must have lost control on the bend, but I believe it may be quite possible you had fallen asleep at the wheel, which is what you actually said to a witness at the scene of the crash.”

The crash happened just after 2.30am on October 11 last year as Pandey was heading home from a shift at a restaurant.

“The defendant’s vehicle was on the wrong side of the road and Ms Conington had no time to react,” said prosecutor Adam Budworth.

Ms Conington, 47, said she was suddenly faced with “vivid headlights” from Pandey’s vehicle — which was travelling at least 50mph in a 30mph zone — and she then could only stand by and watch as her mother and father receiving medical assistance at the roadside.

“Watching my mum lying on the roadside and the emergency services working on her for what seemed like forever was heart wrenching”, she told the court.

My family was torn apart in a matter of seconds because of the reckless actions of an individual.”

She added her father had been left “lonely and extremely sad”, struggling with clinical depression and worried whenever he knows his children are driving.

The court heard Pandey was convicted as a 15-year-old of joyriding when he stole and crashed his father’s car.

But he gained his driving licence aged 17, just seven weeks before the fatal crash.

Despite what he is alleged to have said at the roadside, Pandey later told police: “I felt wide awake, I was fully concentrated on driving and not distracted in any way.”

In a letter to the court, Pandey wrote: “I’m not proud of what I’ve done, I fully accept responsibility for my actions, I’m ashamed of myself.”

His barrister Neil Fitzgibbon said: “He knows he has done a very terrible thing... He is so terribly sorry to the Conington family.”

Pandey, of Mottingham, south-east London, was also banned from driving for the next six-and-a-half years and must take an extended test to get his licence back.