"The judge described the collision as horrifying."
Hockley recently saw a horrifying incident in which a reckless driver was jailed for killing a woman.
In August 2023, Shangeeth Sathyanathan was driving an Audi A5 on the wrong side of the road in Birmingham.
Sathyanathan was aged 19 at the time and hailed from Brettel Lane, Brierley Hill.
He had overtaken two vehicles before crashing into a Nissan Qashqai, which was travelling on the correct side of the road.
Sathyanathan was speeding as well. Unfortunately, a female passenger in the Qashqai was pronounced dead at the scene in Great Hampton Street, Hockley.
The driver of the Qashqai also suffered serious back injuries. Meanwhile, Sathyanathan and a passenger in the Audi were treated at the hospital for minor injuries.
Sathyanathan pled guilty to causing death by dangerous driving, causing serious injury by dangerous driving, and driving without insurance.
At his hearing on Friday, December 13, 2024, he was jailed for nine years and was disqualified from driving for 12 years and six months.
Forensic evidence at Birmingham Crown Court revealed that the Audi travelled at 75 mph when it collided with the Qashqai. The speed limit on the street is 30 mph.
After Sathyanathan, now aged 20, was jailed, Detective Sergeant Richard Evans, from the Serious Collision Investigation Unit, said:
“This was a deliberate decision by Sathyanathan to carry out a highly dangerous manoeuvre at a speed very significantly in excess of the speed limit.
“The judge described the collision as horrifying and that it was purely good fortune that the driver of the Qashqai did survive.
“We can only hope that the guilty plea and the jail term can in some way bring some comfort to those who lost so much in this collision.”
West Midlands Police added that “too many people” were being killed and injured on UK streets.
They asserted their commitment to operations dedicated to safer road patrols and targeting the Fatal Four.
The Fatal Four alludes to the main contributors to collisions, which see people killed or seriously injured.
These are speeding, drink-driving, not wearing a seatbelt, and using a mobile phone.
In a similar case, Mohammed Alan was recently jailed for two years and 10 months after he deliberately mounted a pavement and ran over a university student in Nottingham City Centre.
The incident occurred on October 27, 2023.
The injuries sustained by the victim were so severe that he required skin grafts and was unable to walk for months following his surgery.
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