Drunken bride is jailed over fatal crash

Tina Panesar was jailed for four years yesterday after Leeds Crown Court heard the tragedy happened on the Leeds Outer Ring Road in April last year. She was driving her husband Sukhbir, 30, in his BMW from a family celebration at a cousin’s home on Wetherby Road.

Another motorist who saw her drive around the roundabout joining the road near Shadwell and followed her in the direction of Moortown later told police she “must have been shifting” because he saw her headlights disappear ahead of him.

Richard Walters prosecuting said that driver then came across what he initially thought was fog, only to realise it was smoke, when he saw debris on the road and then the car on its roof on the carriageway in front of him.

He immediately rang the emergency services and got out to help. Panesar was on the road ahead of the vehicle, crying. Her husband was lying face down on the grass verge nearby. He was unconscious, at that stage still breathing but died within a short time from head and other injuries.

Marks at the scene suggested she had lost control on a bend and hit the kerb on the opposite side of the road before striking a lamp post and a stone bench which sent the car airborne so that it struck a tree.

One wheel was torn off before the car rotated violently, hitting a bus stop before ending up on the road.

During the crash the rear windscreen came out and Mr Panesar, who it appeared was not wearing a seat belt, was flung out.

Panesar, who was bleeding was taken by ambulance to hospital, and told a paramedic she had not been driving. She told police she did not know what had happened and that the accident had affected her memory, but at the hospital was overheard telling her mother she had been driving adding, “but they don’t know that”.

A blood sample showed a reading of 172, more than double the limit of 80. Tests on the passenger airbag showed that was where her husband had been sitting.

Panesar, 28, of Baring Avenue, Bradford admitted causing her husband’s death by careless driving while over the prescribed limit.

Jailing her and disqualifying her from driving for five years, Judge Geoffrey Marson QC said it was a tragic case but she had made a deliberate decision to drive knowing she had been drinking. “Not for a matter of yards but for a relatively significant journey back to Bradford through partly urban areas of Leeds. You could have taken a taxi but nonetheless you made that decision.”

He said she crashed because of a combination of speed and drink and her husband suffered catastrophic injuries as a result.

David McGonigal, for Panesar, said she accepted she must have been going too fast for “that corner having had that amount to drink”. Her remorse was genuine and it had been accepted by her husband’s family with whom she was living.

Kamaljit Panesar described his nephew Sukhbir in a statement as someone who loved life. A keen Liverpool supporter, he was also a Bhangra dancer who once performed for the Queen at Valley Parade and on TV’s Blue Peter.