Wrexham man left his partner to die alone after crash

Joseph Berry went on the run for five months after the crash

A man who left his fatally injured partner in their car after a crash has been jailed for three-and-a-half years.

Joseph Berry, 39 and from Wrexham, was uninsured and disqualified when he hit a Range Rover in November.

He ran away from the scene in Elton, Cheshire leaving the mother of their five children, 37-year-old Teresa Maguire, behind in his Mercedes.

She was taken to hospital but died the next morning. Berry went on the run before handing himself in April.

The crash took place on Meadow View in Elton

A Crown Prosecution Service spokeswoman said his Mercedes had careered into the wrong lane when the crash happened.

After the Range Rover driver started screaming for help, she noticed the driver's door of the Mercedes was open.

Berry was not in the car - the prosecution said he had run off across a nearby field.

Local residents who came to help noticed Ms Maguire hunched in the passenger foot well, groaning in pain.

She was taken to hospital for surgery but died the next day.

'Truly dreadful'

The Range Rover driver was also injured and has suffered some hearing loss ever since.

Berry went on the run for 141 days after the crash before handing himself in at a police station in Chester on 15 April.

As well as being jailed at Chester Crown Court, Berry was disqualified from driving for 11 years and 5 months.

Neil Colville, of the CPS, said: "This was an appallingly selfish and reckless act on the part of Joseph Berry.

"He left Teresa alone to die. All he could think of was saving his own skin.

"He eventually pleaded guilty but that is of little consequence in the face of such utterly appalling behaviour.

"He is now in prison and his children are without both their mother and their father. A truly dreadful episode."