A driver mowed down and killed a teenage boy who was riding a stolen e-bike 'in temper', a murder trial has heard. Terrence King, 60, denies murdering 15-year-old Devon Simmonds-Caines. Jurors at Minshull Street Crown Court were told that King has admitted manslaughter.
Prosecution Alleges Deliberate Act
Prosecutors alleged that King deliberately hit the boy with the car. Opening the prosecution's case to the jury, Michael Hayton KC told jurors that Devon died after being hit on Rowrah Crescent in Middleton on July 22 last year. The car, a Vauxhall Insignia, was being driven by King.
Mr Hayton said: “Tragically, people young and old are killed regularly in road traffic accidents every week. Make no mistake, in this instance the Crown’s case is that this is not a tragic road traffic accident, nor even is it a case of very poor driving that has led to a death.”
Alleged Motive and Evidence
Mr Hayton alleged that Devon’s death was ‘caused by the deliberate actions of the defendant Terence King who, in temper or outrage’, made a ‘conscious and deliberate decision to drive towards Devon and to steer towards him at speed and to collide with him’. The court heard that the e-bike which Devon was riding when he was hit had been ‘robbed’ earlier that day by Devon and another youth. The owner of the e-bike had been ‘physically dragged’ off it.
Mr Hayton said that Devon suffered serious injuries which proved ‘unsurvivable’, and that he was pronounced dead at the scene at 12.20pm that day. The prosecutor continued: “That death, the Crown says, is to be squarely laid at the door of this defendant, Terence King. We say that his actions, recorded as they are on video footage seized from close to the scene, were obviously deliberate and obviously intended to cause at the very least, really serious harm.”
Video Footage and Dispute
Mr Hayton said that footage showed no brake lights being activated on the Vauxhall. “It does not slow down at all,” he told jurors. CCTV footage played to the court showed the moment Devon was hit as he rode the e-bike. Prosecutors alleged that King steered towards Devon without slowing down.
“The area of dispute which you have to consider is comparatively narrow,” Mr Hayton told the jury. He said it was likely that the issue jurors will have to consider is whether King’s actions were ‘reckless’ or ‘whether it went further than that’. Mr Hayton added: “What else we ask, can anyone intend in steering towards a young boy on a bike at speed and without braking other than to cause, at the very least, really serious harm? That is what Terence King did, and that is what inevitably he must have intended, and if you are sure of that then you will find him guilty of murder.”
King, of Castlerigg Drive, Middleton, denies murder. The trial continues.
