Boy racer who broke girl’s back in 88mph crash while ‘showing off’ jailed for just a year

A teen driver who broke a 16-year-old girl’s spine while showing off in his car has been jailed for just a year.

Elliot Harris, 19, had passed his driving test just three weeks before crashing in Widnes, Cheshire.

Harris, who was 17 at the time of the incident, picked up two girls from a dance class, before he lost control of his vehicle after speeding over a roundabout in Cronton.

The newly qualified driver was ‘showing off’ and had accelerated to speeds over 80mph on a 30mph road, Liverpool Crown Court heard.

One of his female passengers suffered a fractured spine from the impact, but Harris advised the other girl and two boys in the car to flee the scene.

Speaking in a victim impact statement, the abandoned girl said she thought she ‘might die’ and she was left in ‘unimaginable pain’.

She said she was ‘rushed to hospital in agony’ following the crash, for what she said was one of the most traumatic episodes in her life.

The incident left her dreams of a career in dancing in doubt after she feared she would never walk again following surgery.

‘Dance wasn’t just something I loved, it was who I was and what I wanted my future to be’, she said.

She had met Harris through a friend who attended the same college as him.

Defending the young driver, Martine Snowdon said that Harris lack of experience on the road meant he was unaware of how reckless his driving was.

Harris had learnt a lesson from the experience and was a ‘role model’ in all other aspects of life, she said.

Ms Snowdon added that Harris ‘feels the shame and remorse of his actions more so than perhaps someone who was not so caring and sensitive towards others would’.

Harris pleaded guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving.

Judge Mark Bradshaw, sentencing, said that Harris’s ‘irresponsible and dangerous actions’ had changed people’s lives.

Referring to the impact on the injured girl, he said: ‘She couldn’t care for herself for many weeks. She had impaired mobility, flashbacks and anxiety.’

He added that she continued to live with ‘ongoing mental pain and scars’, two years after the incident.

‘The explanation you gave is that you were showing off, and frankly I agree that was probably, sadly your motive at the time’, he added.

Harris was handed a sentence of one year in a young offender’s institution as well as a five-and-a-half-year driving ban, after which he will have to complete an extended re-test.

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