This is the moment killer driver Darryl Anderson claims to police it was a hitchhiker driving his car at 141mph when it crashed and killed two people, and not him.
Anderson was on Tuesday morning (July 9) sentenced to 17 years in prison after causing the deaths of eight-month-old Zackary Blades and his auntie Karlene Warner, 30.
It happened on the A1(M) in the early hours of May 31. Anderson was driving home to Yorkshire from Newcastle Airport having just got off a flight. Shalorna Waner had gone to pick up sister Karlene with her baby Zackary in the back seat when he crashed into them at 141mph on the motorway between Chester-le-Street and Durham.
Both Karlene and Zackary died at the scene.
Audio of an interview released by officers after he was jailed reveals Anderson making up a bogus alibi claiming he let a hitchhiker he picked up near Newcastle Airport drive his car.
He made the claims despite having previously told police, “I have drove into the back of another car”, an admission caught on a body-worn camera.
In the audio recording Anderson says: “I’ve come out of Newcastle Airport, I think there’s two roundabouts you go around, and then where the road was down to the A1, there’s a guy at the side flagging a journey.
“I pulled up and said, ‘What’s up mate?’. He says, ‘Can I have a lift please?.”
Anderson goes on spinning his fake version of events and says he asked the hitchhiker if he could drive.
“Cos (sic) I’m knackered, you know from flight and what have you,” he tells police.
“I say ‘I tell you what, show me your licence, show me that you’re old enough’. He says he don’t drink, he just smokes weed.
“I say, take it easy when you’re driving.
“So I jumped in the passenger (seat) and he was in the driving seat. I think he’s gone the wrong way to start with and then I’ve just fallen asleep and woke up when we’re crashing.”
Prosecutor Emma Dowling KC told Durham Crown Court on Tuesday that officers had to go about disproving his dodgy claims.
She said police found that only one seatbelt in his car was in use, and only one airbag was triggered. DNA on that airbag, on the drivers’ side, confirmed Anderson was the driver.
“In his second (interview) he came up with a wholly false account that he picked up a hitchhiker and allowed that person to drive this car,” Ms Dowling said.
She added that he also said in the interview he “hoped police would catch the driver” and that “it wasn’t good for him to witness”.
Recommended reading:
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He had taken a photo on his phone of the speedo on his Audi Q5 hitting 141mph seconds before the crash, again from the drivers’ perspective.
He eventually admitted the charges at a plea hearing last week before being sentenced today.
The judge told him he had played “Russian Roulette” with the lives of every person he passed on his journey.
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