A drunk driver who admitted causing the death of a passenger when he crashed into a tree at over 60mph after a night out has been jailed for seven years.
Ethan Entwistle, 18, died when Colby Hammond, 20, lost control of his Seat Ibiza at high speed with three passengers in Dumpton Park Drive, Broadstairs, Kent, on October 1 2023.
Hammond admitted causing death by dangerous driving in June, having sped up to 75mph on a residential carriageway with a 30mph limit moments before he lost control.
The car hit a tree planted on the side of the road at over 60mph and did “terrible” damage to the passenger seat, where Ethan had been sitting.
At Canterbury Crown Court on Thursday the court heard that one of the other passengers had told police it was a “pretty normal thing” for Hammond to drink and drive.
Over 30 members of Ethan’s family and friends came to court to watch proceedings from the well of the court, while a significant number of Hammond’s watched from the public gallery.
In sentencing, Judge Simon James said: “With three passengers in your vehicle you were driving at speeds well in excess of the speed limit and probably more than twice the legal alcohol limit.
“You drove the wrong way down a one way street and refused to heed the warning of your passengers to slow down.”
He added: ““Although, of course, you didn’t intend to kill him, his death was caused by your irresponsibility, criminally reckless speed, abject failure to have regard to the safety of others and your deliberate decision to drive while under the influence of alcohol, something which it appears you had a habit of doing.”
Since Ethan’s death, his mother Keena Entwistle and wider family have campaigned for the introduction of graduated driving licences to avoid similar accidents from happening.
The four teenagers had decided to meet up as a small “school reunion” in Broadstairs on September 30, although Ethan and Hammond did not know each other well.
They had drinks in a shed at around 11pm before heading to a pub on foot, and when that pub closed they decided to drive to Ramsgate to carry on drinking.
Prosecuting, Sam Barker said: “The Seat had been fitted with a telematic recording device by an insurance company and data from that device showed that Mr Hammond exceeded the speed limit frequently on both the outward, and fatal homeward journeys.
“Over half the data points for the journey were in excess of the speed limit, some considerably so.”
One of the backseat passengers who survived the crash remembers the journey being fast and bumpy, while the other recalls shouting for Hammond to slow down, to no effect.
Driving at the speed limit, the journey home would have taken under 10 minutes, the court heard.
Ethan’s best friend Benjamin Brazil, who had invited him on the night out, told the court “I tried my best to keep him alive” when describing how he called 999 and carried out CPR after the crash.
“I consider myself extremely lucky but it doesn’t take away my guilt that I survived and Ethan did not,” he said.
Despite his efforts and those of paramedics at the scene, Ethan died just after 4.30am on October 1, two days before his 19th birthday.
Judge James said that Ethan was “clearly a very special young man” who was “vibrant and popular” and noted the “visceral grief” in the victim impact statements from his mother and best friend.
Outside court, Ms Entwistle said: “The sentence, I wasn’t fussed by it was the fact that I needed him to plead guilty, I needed him to take responsibility for what he’d done and the trauma he’d caused, with him doing that, that was what I wanted.”
“I’ve felt immense guilt because I wasn’t there with Ethan. I’ve been told by numerous people that it wasn’t anything to do with me and hearing him has helped relieve some of that guilt that I was feeling.”
She went on to call again for graduated driving licences which would stop young people from carrying “peer-aged passengers” for six months after their test, with notable exceptions.
“We want the Government to acknowledge the fact that our children aren’t a number, they’re not a statistic, they’re a person and if it has been in place there is the possibility Ethan could be here now,” said Ms Entwistle.
Along with serving at least two thirds of his term in custody, Hammond was also disqualified from driving for six years from the date where he is first eligible for release.
