A DRUNKEN driver crashed a friend’s car while fleeing the police and then ran from the scene - leaving a young mum bleeding to death in the passenger seat, a court heard today, (March 15).

When Adam Selway was caught shortly afterwards he did not tell the police that Lucy Vaughan was in the car and vital minutes which might have saved her were lost, Gloucester Crown Court was told.

Lucy had been impaled on a wooden fencepost which penetrated her femoral artery and although she was still alive when she arrived in hospital she died before her parents could get there, said prosecutor Julian Kesner.

He said the crash happened after Selway had been drinking for 12 hours and had got through 15 bottles of lager as well as some vodka. He was found to be still almost twice over the drink drive limit an hour and a half after the crash.

Selway, 22, who had also been using cannabis, had been at Ms Vaughan’s home in Coleford, decided to take Lucy’s partner’s car to go and buy yet more booze because they had run out.

Ms Vaughan’s four-year-old daughter Jessica was being cared for by her parents that night.

Mr Kesner told the court that Selway has never had a driving lesson or passed a test, did not have the car lights on as he drove away from Ms Vaughabn’s home in Queensway, Coleford. The car was seen by a passing police van which turned and started to follow him.

Mr Kesner said that Selway crashed two-thirds of a mile further on, in a residential area at the junction of Woodville Road, Wood Road and North Road.

The car mounted the kerb, crashed through two metres of fencing, hit a telegraph pole and became airborne, hitting another wooden fence on the far corner of the junction. Ms Vaughan was impaled by one of the posts.

He said: "By the time the police caught up the collision had occurred, they saw the defendant running from the scene.

"The officers had no idea there was a passenger in the car. Lucy was found some minutes later and the police attempted to deal with her injuries, but valuable time had clearly been wasted and was pronounced dead of multiple injuries at Southmead Hospital in Bristol shortly after her arrival."

Bricklayer Selway, 22, a dad of one, of Council Villas, English Bicknor, pleaded guilty to causing Ms Vaughan’s death by dangerous driving on April 17 last year. He also admitted driving without insurance or a licence.

He was jailed for six-and-a-half years and banned from driving for five years.

Mark Sharman, defending, said that Selway was an immature young man who had fully accepted his guilt and his responsibility for Ms Vaughan’s death, he said.

"He feels not just her loss but the enormity of what he has done and which he knows he can never change or put right no matter what sentence he receives."

Passing sentence, Recorder Adam Vaitilingam QC told Selway: "The wooden stake passed through Lucy’s femoral artery and despite her bleeding to death in the seat next to you, you fled the car to try to escape the police. That decision is as inexplicable as your decision to drive in the first place.

"You will in due course be released from this sentence and you will have the opportunity then to move on, have a career and children and grow old. You have denied Lucy those opportunities."