Man who killed four people including toddler after wrecking stolen car said he would 'do it again', court hears

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A teenager who killed four people including a toddler in a car crash before telling police he would “do it again” has been jailed for 11-and-a-half years.

Elliott Bower was being chased by officers when he ploughed a stolen VW golf into a people carrier containing seven people in Sheffield.

Adnan Ashraf Jarral, who was driving the other car, died in the collision, along with his 16-month-old son, Muhammed Usman Bin Adnan.

Two other passengers, Vlasta Dunova and Miroslav Duna, were also killed.

“I will get out and I will do bang the same thing again and you lot will have to chase me,” Elliott Bower told officers at the scene, following the collision, Doncaster Crown Court heard.

Bower and his brother Declan were wanted by police for questioning in relation to serious offences at the time of the crash in November,.

The prosecutor, Richard Wright QC, told the court that the pair and another teenager, Mason Cartledge, were all engaged in a “pro-criminal lifestyle” and “resolved not to surrender to custody”.

Bower crashed into the people carrier while driving at 79mph, during a five minute long, 100mph police car chase which took place over six miles in Sheffield.

During the car chase the teenager drove on the wrong side of the road on a blind bend and drove the wrong way around a roundabout.

Video footage shows police officers struggling to keep up with the teenagers, despite travelling at speeds of up to 103mph at times during the pursuit.

The chase came to an end only when Bower plouged into the people carrier.

The group in the other vehicle were returning to Sheffield after a trip to London and were just minutes away from arriving home.

“The defendants were travelling so fast that Adnan could not have seen them approaching from his rear when he positioned himself to turn right,” Mr Wright said. "He was utterly blameless and could have done nothing to avoid the inevitable collision. There was no evidence of braking. There is no evidence of any effort to avoid the collision taken by Bower.”

Mr Wright said there was “virtually nothing left” of the driver’s seat or rear passenger seat in the people carrier following the collision, the force of which drove the vehicle 33m along the road, where it collided with three other vehicles and rotated 360 degrees.

“We didn’t deserve this and we lost loved ones,” Erica Kroscenova, Adnan Jarral’s wife, told the court. “I lost my baby boy, who gave me strength and appetite for life every day. I miss his smile, I miss his voice, I never heard him calling me ‘mummy’, the only word he said was ‘daddy’.”

Elliott Bower admitted causing death by dangerous driving of four of the people in the car and three counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving. Declan Bower and Mr Cartledge both pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicle taking in which death was caused.

Judge Jeremy Richardson QC told Elliott Bower that he would have received the maximum 14-year jail term for causing death by dangerous driving if he had not pleaded guilty.

He recommended that transport minister Chris Grayling, who is conducting a review of sentencing for the offence, should consider allowing judges to go beyond the maximum for ”exceptional, serious” cases.

Describing the driving as “both chilling and breath-taking in its horror”, he told Elliott Bower: “You have visited a catastrophe of the highest magnitude on two families. I’m fully aware of the truly dreadful consequences for the innocent survivors of this shocking incident and the consequences for the family members of those that died.”

The judge said all three men were “miserably wretched local criminals” who existed in a “swamp of professional criminal activity”.

He added: “Each one of you thinks of himself as a local villain who enjoys committing crime. Two of you, the Bower brothers, both enjoy taunting the police. In truth, you are nothing more than a somewhat miserably inadequate group of deeply malevolent local criminals.”

Judge Richardson said: “Not a jot of blame for this attaches to any police officers. It appears to me the police officer driving the police car in pursuit drove with commendable skill in extremely difficult circumstances.”

Additional reporting by agencies