A mum was left frantically searching the motorway for her eight-month-old son after he was thrown from her car when it was hit by a drunk driver at 140mph, a court has heard.
Darryl Anderson, 38, was three times over the limit and had taken a photo of his speedometer showing 141mph moments before he crashed into Sharlona Warner on the A1 on May 31.
Ms Warner’s baby son Zackary Blades was catapulted from her Peugeot 308, with the impact also hurling her sister Karlene from the back seat into the front airbags. Both died instantly.
Durham Crown Court heard how a lorry driver later found the infant’s body lying on a verge bordering the opposite carriageway as his desperate mum tried to wave down oncoming traffic screaming: ‘Zack, Zack.’
Wiping tears from her eyes as she read out a victim impact statement, Ms Warner said: ‘I ran to the left rear side of the car where Zackary would have been, but there was no back of the car, it was crushed.
‘I could not see my baby. I was standing on wreckage, picking up smashed bits of the car and throwing them, trying to find him but he was not there.
‘I was screaming his name and I called 999. I saw the other driver and I ran to him and said “help I cannot find my baby”. I was screaming “Zack, Zack”.
‘He did not help, he never helped. I began running up to the traffic waving my arms and screaming at cars to help me.’
Anderson had been driving his Audi Q5 erratically from Newcastle Airport having drunk excessively on the plane back from a shortened holiday, after falling out with his wife.
By coincidence, Ms Warner had been to pick up her 30-year-old sister, a flight attendant, from the same airport.
Anderson, of Thorpe Hesley, Rotherham, South Yorkshire, admitted two counts of causing death by dangerous driving at a hearing last week.
Judge Joanne Kidd today jailed him for 17 years and three months and banned him from driving for a further 21-and-a-half years when he is released.
Around 50 friends and family members of the two victims were in court for the sentencing.
Judge Kidd told Anderson he had been playing ‘Russian roulette’ with the lives of other drivers that night and a fatal crash was inevitable.
Anderson was breathalysed at the scene and police recorded a 95mg of alcohol per 100ml of breath when the legal limit is 35mg.
Police found an empty vodka bottle in the wreckage of his car.
He had been using WhatsApp while he drove and took a photograph on his phone in which Ms Warner’s Peugeot could be seen, showing the speedometer at 141mph, moments before the crash.
Analysis of the Audi’s computer showed he had the accelerator fully depressed, did not brake before impact, and that a collision warning light was illuminated on the dashboard.
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