A motorcyclist captured on CCTV racing his friend has been jailed for a 'shocking' manoeuvre which killed his pal during lockdown. Cambell Kennedy, then 23, and his friend Kyle Hempenstall, 28, had been using the roads like 'their own private race track' as they rode their powerful Yamaha R1 machines, a court was told.
Kennedy, who had earlier pulled a wheelie and given another driver the 'w***er hand gesture', led his friend between a Transit van and an HGV on the M62 when he suddenly hit the brakes and beckoned Kyle to follow, prompting the van to brake sharply and swerve towards the lorry.
Kyle's handlebar clipped the van as the gap narrowed. He lost control and his bike smashed into a highways maintenance digger. The father of one, who worked as a joiner, died of catastrophic injuries at the scene. Kennedy continued to speed away, turned around at the next junction and passed the scene of the crash he had just caused as he fled back to his home in Stockport.
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The crash happened between junctions 12 for Eccles and 11 for Birchwood as the pair sped away from Manchester at 1pm on Wednesday May 27, 2020, when traffic was 'light' due to the national lockdown in place at the time, prosecutor Rob Hall told Manchester Crown Court.
At the time of the crash, Kennedy was uninsured, only had a provisional licence, had not taken the required 'compulsory basic training' test to ride a motorbike and only five months earlier had been fined and handed six penalty points for failing to provide his details for another traffic offence, the prosecutor told the court.
Kyle had passed his driving test when he was 20 and at 25 he passed a test allowing him to ride the most powerful motorbikes, the court was told. He had no endorsements on his licence. R1s have a top speed of 182mph.
Earlier on the day of the crash, the pair had picked up their powerful Yamaha R1 machines from a lock-up in Stockport. Cambell's was a silver 1400cc version with no wing mirrors and an illegally small registration plate. Kyle had only owned his red R1 for a few weeks.
The court heard Cambell had earlier told Kyle's father: "If I ever get into trouble, I'm off mate and I'm not stopping for the f***ing police."
The court was shown a compilation of CCTV footage which showed the pair, led by Cambell, racing along the roads of Greater Manchester between traffic, overtaking and undertaking while riding well over the speed limits.
Cambell was captured at one stage performing a wheelie and even trying to knock the wing mirror off a car he was passing with his hand and showing the upset driver the 'w****er hand gesture', Mr Hall told the court.
One motorist later told police he thought the pair were 'racing' although he believed Cambell was riding 'much more dangerously'. Both had shown 'no consideration for other road users', according to the driver.
A police accident collision investigator found that Kennedy had averaged between 79mph and 88mph while Kyle averaged 83mph to 92mph before the crash, despite a 50mph speed limit on the M62 due to roadworks.
The court heard the driver of the Ford Transit van, Keith Fitzsimons, 54, had told officers he was 'taken by surprise' even though he had been checking his wing mirrors as he passed the HGV on the outside lane of the motorway.
He recalled that Cambell had suddenly slowed when he had navigated the gap between the van and lorry even though there was 'no need' as the lane ahead of Cambell was clear.
Mr Fitzsimons said: "They were riding as if the motorway was their own private race track and they didn't care about anybody else."
A police collision investigator concluded the actions of Cambell caused Mr Fitzsimons to 'divert from his path'. Kyle's left shoulder 'took the brunt of the impact' and it was quickly clear that he was losing a lot of blood, the court was told.
The air ambulance arrived within 20 minutes but Kyle was pronounced dead a the scene at 2.08pm. He had suffered a skull fracture, a brain injury and other broken bones in his legs.
As he fled the scene, CCTV footage showed the defendant 'riding just as unsafely as he had before the collision', said Mr Hall. He continued to overtake and undertake and 'narrowly' missed a sign in the central reservation as he sped towards the M602 and then the A57 Regent Road in Salford.
The collision investigator concluded that in the 22 miles the defendant had covered from Regent Road to the crash scene and back again, a journey that took just 17 minutes, he averaged 77mph despite the speed limits in place of 30mph, 40mph and 50mph.
The defendant sped along the A6 and returned to the lock-up in Stockport. But he removed his bike and clothing. When Kyle's distressed father called him to find out what was happening, he was met with 'evasion' from Cambell who refused to go to the scene of the crash, said the prosecutor.
Four days after the crash, when Cambell had still not been arrested, he fled on foot from his mother's house when a group of Kyle's friends turned up to make a citizens' arrest. He eventually handed himself into the police the next day. He refused to answer questions in his police interview. He was only charged in January of this year, almost two years after his crime.
His father Stuart Allen, in a victim personal statement read to the court, said: "This is the most difficult thing for any parent to have to go through. Every day is filled with pain and devastation... Not a day goes by without us thinking about our beautiful boy. He was a loving, thoughtful caring young man with his whole life ahead of him."
Kyle 'didn't deserve to be treated the way he was' by Cambell, he said, adding that 'he left him to die'.
His mother Donna Allen, in her victim statement, described how the grief was so much she ended up in hospital and was sectioned under the Mental Health Act. Watching from the public gallery, her statement revealed she remains on medication.
She wrote: "I'm not the same person I was. I used to be bubbly and now I'm permanently fed-up. I don't want to get up anymore and have social anxiety... The big Sunday dinners have stopped because it feels like we're leaving Kyle out and I don't want that."
Kyle's sister Kiera said she was six months pregnant at the time and Kyle never got the chance to meet her baby daughter. The 'evil and callous' defendant had shown 'a lack of dignity and respect', she said.
Cambell held his head in his hands in the dock as the statements were read out.
Alaric Bassano, defending, said his client had been of 'previous good character' and had 'expressed his remorse'. He said: "I appreciate some listening to that may consider them hollow words but the defendant is truly sorry for his conduct."
The Recorder of Manchester Judge Nicholas Dean QC said the description from Mr Fitzsimmons, that the pair treated the roads 'as their own private race track', 'encapsulates what was happening on this day'.
The judge criticised the defendant's 'highly dangerous' riding and 'cavalier attitude' to the use of powerful motorbikes. He said: "The motorcycle you were riding did not have mirrors, it had undersized number plates. You never took a test and you had said to Kyle's father you had no intention of being stopped by the police."
The final manoeuvre was a 'shocking piece of driving', said the judge, making it clear that Mrs Fitzsimons 'bears absolutely no responsibility at all'.
The judge continued: "Whether you appreciated it in the immediate moments after the contact (between the vehicles), you certainly knew very soon afterwards that your friend must be dead. You then rode much as you had done previously by now it seems to me in a desire to distance yourself from what had occurred."
The defendant had 'hampered' the investigation and 'Kyle's father begged you to help and didn't', said the judge. He added: "Kyle was your friend. It's not entirely clear to me how close you were to him but for the rest of your life you will be secure of knowing you have killed a friend."
The judge conceded it was a mitigating factor that 'Kyle's own riding that day was a contributory factor to his own death."
Cambell, 25, of Old Chapel Street in Edgeley, Stockport, who has no previous convictions, was sentenced to five-and-a-half years behind bars after he pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving and causing death while uninsured. He will be released on licence half way through the sentence. When released, he will be banned from the roads for seven years. A charge of perverting the course of justice was ordered to 'lie on file'.
After he hearing, Kyle's mother Donna told the M.E.N. she was 'disgusted' by the sentence. She said: "I just think it's an absolute joke. He's just going to do two years and nine months and that's it, for Kyle's life!"
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