Ben Somers

A 24-year-old Shropshire man has been sentenced to more than three years in prison for causing the death of a teenage cyclist by dangerous driving.

Paul Leon Brittan, of Church Street, St Georges, Telford, was sentenced at Shrewsbury Crown Court yesterday for causing the death of 14-year-old Ben Somers, of Shrewsbury.

Brittan admitted causing death by dangerous driving in an incident on the A5112 Whitchurch Road in Shrewsbury on October 24.

He was jailed for three years and four months and disqualified from driving for four years.

The court heard Brittan collided with Ben on the wrong side of the road as the teenager was crossing at a pedestrian sanctuary.

Judge Robin Onions said: “He (Ben) was crossing in a place where he was entitled to believe it was safe for him to cross. He could never be expected to realise somebody would come from his left but that it exactly what you did.

“The fault is yours and yours alone. You deprived Benjamin of his life and his family of everything he was and everything he was to become.”

The court heard that Brittan, driving a black Vauxhall Vectra, overtook at a junction at speed and as the two lanes merged there was little room to pull in.

Mr Jonathan Veasey-Pugh, prosecuting, said: “The deceased began crossing what was the other side of the road from the defendant’s line of travel. The defendant entered that side of the road and at that point collided.”

Mr Andrew Holland, for Brittan, said: “It was an avoidable accident had he not overtaken the way he did.”

He said at the point where the lanes merged Brittan made a last-minute decision to drive on the wrong side of the road rather than brake and cut into traffic.

“Clearly he didn’t see Ben on his cycle,” he said, adding it had had a traumatic effect on Brittan, who was of previous good character.

A charge of driving while unfit through drugs was dismissed.

By Suzanne Roberts