Man high on cocktail of drink and drugs jailed after crashing BMW causing fatal injuries to passenger

Handing Steven Cunningham a nine and a half year sentence for causing the death of Charlotte McHugh by careless driving while unfit, Judge Geoffrey Miller KC also imposed six and a half years for perverting justice as the 28-year-old tried to cover up his involvement.

Ordering the sentences to be served consecutively, half in prison and half on licence, the Downpatrick Crown Court judge told Cunningham while he may not have been physically involved in having the fatally injured Charlotte McHugh moved from the scene of the crash to the home of a co-accused, “there can be no question that a prime motive was his determination to distance himself from the crash and being caught as the cause of her death.

He told Cunningham, who turns 29 next week, that as a disqualified driver he had “no right” to have been driving that night but in doing so, along with the fact that he was high of drink and drugs, he had demonstrated “arrogance and a lack of regard for the sanctions of this court.”

As Charlotte’s mum Amanda Flood sat listening intently in the public gallery, Judge Miller also told the self-confessed killer driver that just like his co-accused his “thoughtless and callous actions showed a disregard to this woman who claimed to be her friends.”

On the day he was due to go on trial last June Cunningham, whose address is subject to a reporting restriction due to threats on his life, admitted causing the death of 27-year-old Charlotte by driving carelessly on the Comber Road in Dundonald and while unfit through drink or drugs on 1 June 2021.

The self-confessed killer driver also entered guilty pleas to driving dangerously on the Old Dundonald Road, driving while disqualified, possessing class C drugs pregabalin and diazepam, driving without insurance and perverting the course of justice in that he “participated in the removal of Charlotte McHugh from the scene of a road traffic collision on the Comber Road, Dundonald.”

Jailing Cunningham today (mon), Judge Miller said while he had expressed remorse through his guilty plea such emotions will be “of little comfort” to Ms Flood whose Victim Impact Statement provided a “heart felt and searing account” of the devastating impact her only’s daughter tragic death had caused.

“These is nothing that this court can say or do that can ever restore the life that has been so cruelly lost and nothing that lessen the sentence of pain and emptiness experienced by the bereaved,” said the judge.

In addition to the jail sentences, Cunningham was also handed a ten year driving ban with the disqualification only beginning when he is freed from prison.