Driver in court following crash death - The Stratford Observer

Driver in court following crash death

Stratford Editorial 1st Sep, 2016 Updated: 28th Oct, 2016   0

A DRIVER has been accused of causing the death of a south Warwickshire woman who died five days after she was severely injured in a crash in Wellesbourne.

Matthew Keen appeared at Warwick Crown Court charged with causing the death of 33-year-old Amanda Emmott in October last year by dangerous driving.

The 32 year-old, of Lower Quinton, also faces an alternative charge of causing her death by careless driving.

The charges follow a crash on the A429 north of Wellesbourne at around 6pm on October 24 when the VW Golf he was driving smashed through a wall on a bend.




The Golf, in which Miss Emmott was the rear-seat passenger, went into a ditch near the Horticultural Research Centre and rolled over before landing back on its wheels.

Ambulance crews were at the scene within minutes and found her out of the car, but in pain and suffering from internal injuries, and she was rushed to the trauma unit at University Hospital in Coventry.


A front seat passenger, Lee Fearnehough, had to be freed from the car with the aid of firefighters before he was also rushed to hospital with chest injuries.

Keen, who also faces a charge of causing serious injury to Mr Fearnehough by dangerous driving, had left the scene, but voluntarily attended Stratford police station the next day.

Miss Emmott, from Shipston, tragically died in hospital five days after the crash, and Keen was subsequently charged with causing her death.

His barrister Justin Jarmola, told the judge there was some “complex medical evidence”and he would be advising Keen’s solicitors to seek their own medical report

In an indication that Keen denies being responsible for Miss Emmott’s death, Mr Jarmola asked for a provisional date to be fixed for a trial, which he said was likely to last five days.

Recorder Adrian Redgrave QC said the earliest available date for a five-day trial to be fixed was April next year.

He agreed to adjourn the hearing, and for it to be listed again either for a defence application to dismiss the charge to be made or for the plea and trial preparation hearing to continue.

Recorder Redgrave directed “The next hearing must be within the next six weeks, then everyone will then know where they are.”

Keen was granted bail until that hearing, with conditions of residence and reporting to Stratford police station.

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