Yarm man jailed after fatal crash
The man was sentenced today at Teesside Crown Court.
A man from Yarm who was involved in a fatal crash has been jailed.
In July 2021, Paul Robert Barnes, 33, from Yarm, and another offender, 17, from Stockton-on-Tees broke into a property in a village near Northallerton, where they stole an off-road vehicle.
The 17-year-old drove the vehicle and while crossing the A19 at a junction near Thimbleby, a van hit the stolen off-roader as they crossed paths.
Barnes managed to jump from the vehicle before the crash.
However, the male driving the stolen vehicle was thrown from it by the impact and was then hit by another car and died from his injuries.
Barnes was arrested and taken to hospital with minor injuries.
He was later found with a large number of class-C opioid drugs.
After the incident, an extensive police investigation was launched, that included forensic collision examination and other forensic tests, looking through CCTV evidence and taking a number of statements to establish exactly what happened and bring the suspect to court.
Barnes pleaded guilty to burglary, aggravated TWOC (taking a vehicle without the owner’s consent) resulting in death and drug possession.
Today a judge at Teesside Crown Court sentenced him to four years in prison and disqualified him from driving for a minimum of 37 months.
Speaking after the hearing, Sergeant Marie Williams of North Yorkshire Police’s Major Collision Investigation Team, said: “This was a horrific incident in which one driver lost his life and two others will always have to live with what happened.
There are no winners from an investigation like this, but it’s right that Barnes has been brought to justice and sentenced by the courts today.”