This is the horrifying moment a dangerous driver killed two teenagers and left two others with life-changing injuries as he was ‘showed off’ his heavily modified vehicle at a car meet.
Dhiya Al Maamoury, 56, lost control of his Nissan Skyline and ploughed into a group of friends stood on the pavement – killing Ben Corfield, 19 and friend Liberty Charris, 16, and seriously injuring two others.
The shocking footage shows Al Maamoury hurling along Oldbury Road in Oldbury, West Midlands, where he lost control of his vehicle, careering into the group of group of youngsters.
Ms Charris and Mr Corfield were pronounced dead at the scene in November 2022.
Al Maamoury has been jailed for 13-and-a-half years at Wolverhampton Crown Court today following the two youngsters’ deaths.
The shocking moment dangerous driver, Dhiya Al Maamoury, lost control of the vehicle and ploughed into a crowd killing two teenagers
Liberty Charris, 16, (left) and her friend Ben Corfield. 19 (right) were killed after being struck by the car and were pronounced dead at the scene in November 2022
Dhiya Al Maamoury, 56, (Pictured) has been jailed for 13-and-a-half-years after ploughing his car into a group of friends whilst ‘showing off’ at a car meet and killing the two teenagers
Following the sentencing, Ben’s grieving father said street racing and car meets were a ‘scourge of the Earth’ and hoped the sentence would be a lesson to those who take part in them.
A court heard there had been regular car meets in the area at the time in 2022 – organised by social media with the aim of showing off vehicles or racing – which attracted large crowds.
The court heard Al Maamoury had been revving his car, which had been modified to increase its power, in a side street before joining a dual carriageway and losing control.
Sentencing Al Maamoury, judge Michael Chambers KC told him the dangers of such behaviour ‘were obvious and should have been obvious to you’.
Speaking beside wife Lynette, and with a pin badge of his son’s face attached to his suit lapel, Mr Corfield said afterwards: ‘We’ve all seen these type of car meets advertised out there.
‘They are a danger to all road users and they seem to have progressed over the last 12 or 18 months.
‘The incident that took Ben’s life at Oldbury, there is an injunction there now and West Midlands Police are certainly making a strong stance on that to stamp this practice out.
‘You should be able to, as a pedestrian, be awarded that safety and we applaud the work that West Midlands Police are doing.’
While Mr Corfield said the sentencing ‘hasn’t delivered a conclusion for us as a family’, he said he believed the judge had set a precedent with his sentence.
Police cordoned off the scene when the two teenagers were killed in November 2022 (pictured)
The location where the car mounted the pavement before hitting the wall on Oldbury Road (pictured)
He said: ‘Ben’s gone, we’ve lost our son, the light of our lives. Nothing will take that pain away, and it’s the most excruciating, heart-wrenching pain, every second of the day.
‘(The sentence) was far more than what us four families were expecting, and this has got to be a warning to anybody that’s involved in this type of action, that it won’t be tolerated.
‘This guy showed no remorse.’
Prosecutor Michelle Heeley KC told the court the car, which had been imported from Japan around 18 months before the collision, had been modified so the exhaust would spit fire and had a turbo engine fitted.
She said Al Maamoury had been driving at speeds of between 54 and 57mph on the 40mph stretch of road and was ‘fishtailing’ before he lost control completely before ploughing into the group on the pavement.
Ms Heeley said: ‘He denied in interview that he was showing off. The prosecution point to the social media material to demonstrate that is exactly what he was doing.’
Liberty’s mother Tracy Charris cried as she paid tribute to her ‘larger than life’ daughter who was a ‘force to be reckoned with’.
She said: ‘I had always wanted a little girl and from the moment she was born, it was me and her against the world. I would have died for her.
‘She was so bright and bubbly, she loved everything and everyone. Her absence is deafening.’
Al Maamoury admitted two counts of causing death by dangerous driving and two counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving on the day he was due to stand trial in September.
Balbir Singh, defending, said Al Maamoury and his family had been displaced from Iraq due to the Gulf War and said he was of ‘positive, good character’ who has ‘worked hard, brought up his family and moved to this country where he has continued to work hard’.
Judge Chambers also banned Al Maamoury from driving for 14 years.
The judge told him: ‘You deliberately carried out a highly dangerous manoeuvre in order to show off to the crowd by accelerating hard in a Nissan that you had deliberately modified in order to increase its power.
Tributes were left to Liberty, 16, and Ben, 19, at the scene of the collision. Their families made public statements in November 2022
‘You did so in clear close proximity to a crowd of spectators who had lined the road and included the four victims in this case.
‘As a result you lost control of your car with catastrophic results.’
Outside court, Mr Corfield described his son as a ‘miracle’ who completed their family.
He said of the fatal collision in November 2022: ‘Al Maamoury has taken our lives away. The pain and devastation as a father, a mother and a sister, we cant settle. We wake up and we’re calling for him.
‘Al Maamoury has been given his sentence but we’ve got a life sentence and we have to deal with that now for whatever time we have left.’
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk