Drink-driver jailed over fatal head-on crash

A drink-driver has been jailed for eight years for causing a fatal head-on crash.

Jake Calow, 24, of Syston, Leicestershire, spent several hours in a pub in July 2022 before crashing a work colleague's van that he had taken without consent.

Patrick Shortt, 58, who was a passenger in another van, died at the scene at Brimpton Common, on the Berkshire-Hampshire border.

Calow pleaded guilty at Winchester Crown Court to causing death and serious injury by dangerous driving, aggravated vehicle-taking and causing death while uninsured.

Police said Calow drank at Bel & The Dragon in Kingsclere before buying more alcohol from a shop and getting behind the wheel of a Ford Transit.

Shortly after 20:00 BST on 11 July 2022, the defendant collided head-on with a Volkswagen Caddy on Hockford Lane at the junction with the B3051.

Mr Shortt, from Woodley, near Reading, died while the driver was seriously injured.

Calow, of Broad Street, was disqualified from driving for five years.

His passenger, Oliver McGowan, 24, of Fletchers Way in East Goscote, Leicestershire, admitted aggravated vehicle-taking.

He received a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, as well as being ordered to carry out 250 hours of unpaid work and to observe a three-month curfew.

Det Con Lyndsey Blackaby said: “Calow should never have been driving that evening. He had been drinking and selfishly got behind the wheel of a van anyway.

“The result of his utterly reckless actions is that a man has died, leaving his family devastated and another has been left with life-changing injuries."