A CO Antrim man died after being struck by a speeding car driven by a motorist who had spent the evening drinking with friends, a court heard yesterday.
Unlicensed driver, Thomas Bimson, failed to stop at the scene along Liverpool’s waterfront, but sped off in the high performance BMW 330X which was on hire to his front seat passenger Ibrar Saddique and did not hand himself in to police for three days.
The two men abandoned the vehicle and got a taxi back to Bimson’s nearby home, which took them past the scene of the tragedy where emergency services were trying to treat 24-year-old Matthew Bradley.
Liverpool Crown Court was told yesterday that Mr Bradley, a landscape gardener, who was originally from Glenavy, was crossing the road at the Strand around 11.45pm on November 3, 2017 when he was hit by a car.
Opening the prosecution case, Martine Snowdon, told the jury that Mr Bradley was thrown into the air on impact but the BMW "made no attempt to stop and sped off" while Mr Bradley lay on the road with catastrophic injuries".
Bimson (23) of Waterloo Warehouse, Vauxhall, Liverpool, who had never taken a driving test, has pleaded not guilty to causing the death of Mr Bradley by dangerous driving.
He also denies two further offences involving causing death by driving without insurance and without a licence. Ibrar Saddique (34), of Sunnybank Lane, Pudsey, West Yorkshire, denies the offence of aiding and abetting causing death by driving while uninsured.
The court heard that CCTV footage showed Bimson joining friends in a hotel bar at 8pm on the night of the crash.
Saddique, who was driving over from Yorkshire in the BMW he had hired, parked outside and joined the group. It was claimed that Bimson had consumed up to eight drinks.
The prosecution lawyer said that later Bimson got behind the wheel of Saddique's car after the pair left the hotel.
“Whatever the purpose of the trips around the city centre roads it is clear that Thomas Bimson was putting his foot down in that BMW and driving over the speed limit where there was enough space in the traffic for him to do so," the lawyer said.
She claimed that as the car sped up as it approached the Strand where Mr Bradley, who was living in Guildford in Surrey, was crossing the road. After crossing two lanes of traffic it was claimed that "at that moment....Thomas Bimson sped past another car the third lane and struck Mr Bradley
It has been estimated the car was travelling at 48 mph along the 30 mph road at the time.
The jury heard that by the time Bimson handed himself in to police it was not possible to test what his alcohol levels had been at the time of the accident.
When interviewed by police the court heard that Bimson said he had been driving Saddique to a restaurant when they came across a man on the road. He claimed that the man had already stopped one or two cars with his hands and as he tried to get through the lights he struck the pedestrian.
Saying he was shocked, it was claimed he told police he failed to stop in case he got in trouble for only having a provisional licence.
The court heard that he told police that when he learned the following day that Mr Bradley had died he "burst into tears, calling himself a murderer and saying to his friend that he was going to go and hand himself in.”
Saddique told police the victim who “came out of nowhere”. He claimed Bimson had not been drunk or speeding.
The case continues
