Motorist guilty of killing two-week-old by dangerous driving

Jurors took just two hours to reject James Davis’s claim that he blacked out at the wheel in the incident on Easter Sunday last year.

James Davis, 34, has been found guilty of causing the death of a newborn by dangerous driving (PA) (PA Archive)

A hit-and-run driver who crashed into a pram, killing a two-week-old baby, has been convicted of causing death by dangerous driving.

Jurors at Wolverhampton Crown Court also found James Davis guilty of causing the death of Ciaran Morris by driving while uninsured.

Davis, who mounted the pavement in a BMW after colliding with another car, told his trial he blacked out and could not remember hitting Ciaran’s pram on High Street in Brownhills, near Walsall, on Easter Sunday last year.

The trial heard Davis, who had a teenage passenger, had been travelling at 67mph in a 30mph zone shortly before the fatal crash.

Following the tragedy, the 35-year-old ran off and told a passer-by he “had killed a baby and was going down for a long time”.

Opening the case against Davis last week, prosecutor James Curtis QC said: “This case concerns the tragic killing of an 18-day-old child by an act of exceptionally bad and dangerous driving by this defendant, James Davis.

“He was driving a small BMW saloon in Brownhills, Walsall – it was in a shopping area, populated by shoppers and passers-by. Driving conditions were perfect.

“Suddenly he made a manoeuvre which was to prove fatal.

“First he drifted, veered, out of his side of the road, over the centre line, and struck a car which was coming in the opposite direction, on the correct side.

“This did major damage to both cars.

“From there, the BMW swerved in a curve, on the wrong side of the road, and on to the opposite pavement, where a couple were wheeling their new baby, called Ciaran Morris.

“The car crashed into the pushchair, the pram, before hitting the wall and inevitably stopping.

“It caused fatal injuries to the head and body of that little child, who died in hospital soon afterwards despite all attempts to save him.”

The prosecutor said of Davis: “He was fully fit, and he was clear-headed enough, the Crown say, to invent what we say is a false defence.

“The Crown say there is no medical excuse for this driving at all – that is fabrication.”

During his evidence, Davis accepted reaching 67mph in a 30mph area but said he was driving within the speed limit when the crash occurred.

He told the court: “The last thing I remember was going starry-eyed. I can’t remember any of it. It’s like everything went blank.”

Davis, of Croxtalls Avenue, Walsall, will be sentenced later on Friday.