Teenagers killed as man took part in street race

Liberty Charris, 16, and Ben Corfield, 19, were both killed

A man killed two teenagers and seriously injured two others while “showing off” his heavily-modified vehicle at a car meet.

Dhiya Al Maamoury, 56, from Solihull, lost control of his Nissan Skyline and hit pedestrians gathered on the pavement in Oldbury, near Birmingham, on 20 November 2022. The collision killed Liberty Charris, 16, and Ben Corfield, 19.

Al Maamoury denied causing death and serious injury by dangerous driving but changed his plea to guilty as a Wolverhampton Crown Court trial began.

Judge Michael Chambers KC jailed him for 13 and a half years.

Crowd of spectators

The collision on the A457 Oldbury Road, at about 23:30 GMT, also seriously hurt Ethan Kilburn, 21, and Ebonie Parkes, 20, who are still recovering from their injuries, police said.

Al Maamoury’s two adult sons were in the car at the time of the crash.

Street racers had been using the section of the road between roundabouts to perform circuits at the time, West Midlands Police said, with hundreds of people watching.

Dhiya Al Maamoury was jailed for 13 and a half years

Ben's father, Damian Corfield, a Dudley borough councillor, described street racing as a "scourge of the Earth".

He said the sentence was tougher than families were expecting and he hoped it would act as a warning to others involved in car meets.

"We've all seen these type of car meets advertised out there," he said.

"They are a danger to all road users and they seem to have progressed over the last 12 or 18 months.

"Ben's gone, we've lost our son, the light of our lives. Nothing will take that pain away. It's the most excruciating, heart-wrenching pain, every second of the day."

Prosecutor Michelle Heeley KC said the car, imported from Japan, had been modified so the exhaust would spit fire and had a turbo engine fitted.

She said Al Maamoury had been driving at speeds of up to 57mph on the 40mph road.

The crash was not because he was driving too fast, but he was accelerating excessively, she said.

“As he booted it, the back end of his car lost traction with the road and he then began to head towards the central reservation. He tried to overcorrect and lost control.”

Damian Corfield, Ben’s father, said his son had been “struck down on the pavement where he should have been safe”.

He said: “The son we had waited for, for so long, was gone forever.”

Liberty’s mother Tracy Charris paid tribute to her “larger than life” daughter who was a “force to be reckoned with”.

She said: “I had always wanted a little girl and from the moment she was born.”

In mitigation, Balbir Singh said Al Maamoury was “full of regret”.

He said Al Maamoury and his family had been displaced from Iraq because of the Gulf War and he was a man who had “brought up his family and moved to this country where he has continued to work hard”.

The judge told Al Maamoury: “You deliberately carried out a highly dangerous manoeuvre in order to show off to the crowd by accelerating hard in a Nissan that you had deliberately modified in order to increase its power."

He handed Al Maamoury four concurrent jail terms including 13 and a half years for causing death by dangerous driving and 32 months for causing serious injury. He was banned from driving for 14 years.

Det Sgt Paul Hughes, from the serious collision investigation unit, said: “Ben and Liberty were pedestrians on a pavement and should have been afforded some protection but due to Al-Maamoury’s dangerous driving their families have got to live with their loss forever.”

Head of roads policing, Supt Gareth Mason said: “Al-Maamoury was 54 years old which proves its no longer ‘boy racers’ who are driving dangerously and speeding on our roads.

“This case illustrates how dangerous street racing events are, and we are committed to doing everything we can to tackle these illegal meet ups.”

Anyone who has footage of street racing events or of dangerous driving is asked to submit it to the police.