October 28, 2020 11.09 am This story is over 41 months old

Teen driver remembers very little of triple fatal crash

Car was overloaded and a brake pad seized, jury told
The three victims of the fatal crash: Ricky (left) Joby (centre) and Aiden (right).

A newly qualified driver accused of causing a crash which killed three of her passengers told police she did not know how it happened.

Kasey Boulton, 19, is alleged to have hit a tree after losing control of her car as she drove along Heath Lane in Welton, near Lincoln.

Lincoln Crown Court heard that three passengers Ricky Sharp,17, Aiden Sawyer, 17, and Joby John Scrimshaw, 14, were killed in the collision which involved no other vehicles.

Miss Boulton and her two other passengers were also seriously injured.

The prosecution allege Boulton’s car was only designed to hold four passengers but at the time of crash had five with Ricky Sharp sitting in the footwell behind the front passenger.

Ian Way, prosecuting, told a jury that the overloading of the car caused the vehicle to be unbalanced which contributed to Boulton losing control.

Boulton suffered multiple injuries during the collision but gave a voluntary interview to police two weeks after the crash.

During the interview Boulton admitted that she was a fairly inexperienced driver who had passed her driving test just a month before the collision.

Boulton told police she took loads of lessons and drove her car ‘most days’ after passing her driving test at the fourth time.

The incident happened as Boulton was driving towards Lincoln having picked up a house key from her home at Welton just minutes earlier.

In her police interview Boulton said she had spent the day in Lincoln with various friends and had driven to Welton from Sainsburys with five passengers in her car.

When asked if she was aware having six people in the car was an issue Boulton replied “yes,” adding that she did not overthink it or want to leave Ricky Sharp on his own.

Flowers laid at the scene in tribute to the Welton Cliff crash victims. | Photo: Connor Creaghan for The Lincolnite

Boulton said none of the passengers were fooling around or doing anything to distract her, and she was not smoking or using her mobile phone while driving.

She also insisted that she had not drunk any alcohol or taken any drugs during the day. After the collision Boulton produced negative results for both drugs and alcohol.

Bolton told police she was driving at between 50 and 55mph on the 60 limit road but could not remember the immediate moments before the collision with the tree.

“I just remember the feeling of the car being at the wrong angle,” Boulton said. “I screamed.”

| Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite

Defence barrister Michael Cranmer-Brown has suggested there could be other possible scenarios which explain why Miss Boulton as an inexperienced driver may have “over compensated” and her car swerved off the road.

The jury heard one of the car’s brake pads was found to have seized.

Boulton, 19, of Heath Close, Welton, denies three charges of causing death by dangerous driving as a result of the incident on March 25, 2019.

The trial continues.