Judge hears pain of devastated parents as driver is jailed for four years for killing Wigan schoolboy

An unlicensed driver was travelling at nearly three times the speed limit when he lost control of his car, hit a schoolboy and ran away, a court heard.
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Jack Worwood, 13, was walking to meet friends to play football when Liam Wilson’s silver Jaguar X-Type - which he had bought just three days earlier - crashed into him on Old Road in Ashton.

Bolton Crown Court heard Jack’s devastated parents ran to find paramedics trying to save his life, but he died in hospital the following day due to the “catastrophic” injuries.

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Wilson, 21, of Livingstone Street, Ashton, was jailed for four years and banned from driving for five years and 10 months, after earlier pleading guilty to causing Jack’s death by dangerous driving.

Liam Wilson has been jailed for four yearsLiam Wilson has been jailed for four years
Liam Wilson has been jailed for four years

Judge Graeme Smith said many lives had been changed and acknowledged no sentence could “put a value on Jack’s life”.

He said: “Far too often in this court we see young men who think they have the right and the ability to drive a car without having passed a test. This is a particularly tragic example of the consequences of that deluded belief.”

The court heard Wilson had bought the Jaguar in Ashton three days earlier for £250 and failed to get an MOT certificate or insurance.

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Despite only having a provisional driving licence, he got behind the wheel on Tuesday, July 7 to go to KFC in Ashton, choosing not to walk as it was raining.

Jack WorwoodJack Worwood
Jack Worwood

Afterwards, Wilson and his 15-year-old passenger travelled along Old Road in Ashton.

But Wilson was driving at nearly three times the speed limit, described by a witness as “reckless and stupid”, and he lost control on a bend.

Rob Hall, prosecuting, said: “He entered that bend at an excessive, dangerous speed. Later calculations found that at a distance of 50 metres before the bend to the right, the Jaguar was travelling at 58mph, in effect three times the limit in a 20mph zone.”

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Wilson steered to try to gain control of the car, which took him onto the wrong side of the road and heading towards on oncoming vehicle.

The car ended up travelling sideways and backwards, hitting Jack on the pavement and crashing into several garden walls before it came to a stop.

Investigations afterwards suggested Wilson did not apply the emergency brake as he was losing control of the car, which could have prevented the collision.

Passers-by stopped to help Jack and he was taken to Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital by ambulance.

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He was operated on for six hours as medics tried to save his life.

However, he had “catastrophic” head and chest injuries and died in his parents’ arms at 2.53pm the next day, after they made the heartbreaking decision to turn off the life-support machine.

Wilson and his passenger ran away from the crash, but they were identified from CCTV footage, Wilson’s bank card, which he dropped near the car as he fled, and DNA in the vehicle.

The 15-year-old boy was arrested at 8pm that day, but Wilson decided to sleep rough in nearby woods that night to avoid the police and was arrested the following day in Worsley Mesnes.

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The court heard he did not comment in two police interviews, before admitting that he had been driving the car in the third interview.

Emotional victim impact statements from Jack’s parents were read to the court, detailing the pain they had suffered.

His father Andrew Worwood said he was “torn” when he saw Jack in the ambulance, wanting to be with him but realising paramedics needed to work to save the life of his “amazing, funny, clever boy”.

He felt “helpless” when Jack was taken from surgery to intensive care, but was “clinging to hope” that he would wake up, before doctors told him he would not.

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Mr Worwood said: “No parent should ever have to make the decision to end their 13-year-old son’s life but you took that decision away from all of us by your selfish actions.”

He said he felt he had been given a “life sentence” by losing Jack, who had dreamed of becoming an accountant and would have been the best man at his wedding. There is now a “huge void” whenever he thinks of the future, he said.

Jack’s mother Catherine Worwood described her son as a “caring, kind and conscientious kid, a lovable rogue with his whole life in front of him”.

But her life was “turned upside down in 24 hours” and now she will never see him graduate, marry and have children.

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She said: “People may say that he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. He wasn’t. Jack was innocent and had every right to be where he was. Liam Wilson was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He broke the law, Jack didn’t. He killed my son and left him for dead. He fled the scene of a crime. He has lived to tell the tale, my Jack hasn’t.”

In mitigation, Wilson’s barrister said he had grown up in an “abusive household” and his mother was a heroin addict. They recently reconciled and he became her main carer when she had surgery last year, but he was now grieving as she died suddenly last week.

He said Wilson was working to address mental health issues and had been getting support and medication while remanded in custody.

Wilson was not “the most intellectual of individuals”, he said, and had a statement of special educational needs as a child.

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He was “riven with guilt and remorse” and had pleaded guilty at his first appearance at crown court, he said.

Wilson was first in trouble with police at the age of 10, when he was reprimanded for a dishonesty offence, and had a record with 14 offences. Most recently, he had been released under investigation by police in March in relation to a street brawl.

Sentencing, Judge Smith said he had considered a number of factors and believed the main cause of the collision to be “greatly excessive speed”. He accepted that Wilson’s remorse was genuine.

He told Wilson: “You took the selfish and thoroughly dangerous decision to drive and you drove in an extremely dangerous manner.”

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Afterwards, Sgt Darren Hancock said: “Wilson’s dangerous driving has left a family devastated and our thoughts remain with them.

“Whilst we welcome a custodial sentence, it is a timely reminder that driving in such a manner that Wilson did will not be tolerated. The law on the roads is imposed to prevent collisions like these.”