A Co Down driver who was high on a cocktail of drink and drugs when he crashed his BMW, causing the back-seat passenger to be flung from the car and fatally injured, was handed jail sentences amounting to a total of 16 years on Monday. .
Handing Steven Cunningham a 9½-year sentence for causing the death of Charlotte McHugh by careless driving while unfit, Judge Geoffrey Miller KC also imposed 6½ years for perverting justice as the 28-year-old tried to cover up his involvement.
Ordering the sentences to be served consecutively, half in prison and half on licence, the Downpatrick Crown Court judge told Cunningham he had been “the prime mover in taking her body from the scene of the fatal road traffic collision, thereby delaying calls to the emergency services”.
“There can be no question that a prime motive was his determination to distance himself from the crash and being caught as the cause of her death,” Judge Miller said.
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He told Cunningham that as a disqualified driver he had “no right” to have been driving that night but in doing so, along with the fact that he was high on drink and drugs, he had demonstrated “arrogance and a lack of regard for the sanctions of this court”.
On the day he was due to go on trial last June Cunningham, whose address is subject to a reporting restriction due to threats on his life, admitted causing the death of 27-year-old Charlotte by driving carelessly on the Comber Road in Dundonald and while unfit through drink or drugs on June 1st, 2021.
He also entered guilty pleas to driving dangerously on the Old Dundonald Road, driving while disqualified, possessing class C drugs pregabalin and diazepam, driving without insurance and perverting the course of justice in that he “participated in the removal of Charlotte McHugh from the scene of a road traffic collision on the Comber Road, Dundonald”.
Jailing Cunningham, Judge Miller said while he had expressed remorse through his guilty plea, such emotions will be “of little comfort” to Charlotte’s mum Amanda Flood, whose victim impact statement provided a “heart felt and searing account” of the devastating impact her only daughter’s tragic death had caused.
In addition to the jail sentences, Cunningham was also handed a 10-year driving ban, with the disqualification only beginning when he is freed from prison.
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