A BANNED driver who failed to call an ambulance for his dying girlfriend when she was flung through the windscreen of his car in a high-speed crash has been given an indeterminate life sentence for her manslaughter.
Andrew Bennett, 20, who had been drinking and smoking cannabis, smashed his Subaru Impreza into a tree at 90mph, catapulting 17-year-old Kirsty Cash through the windscreen.
By the time an ambulance was called, more than half-an -hour later, Miss Cash had stopped breathing. She died from multiple injuries to her chest, ribs and abdomen.
Unemployed Bennett, who was 19 at the time of the crash and had never taken a driving test, had bought the powerful car the day before, using money from a multi-million pound compensation pay-out awarded to his brother who was left severely disabled at birth.
But Bennett, who had found Kirsty on the opposite side of the road behind a wall, lunged at Miss Kilner Farr and snatched away her phone shouting: "Don't phone them I'm a banned driver and I'm not getting done for this. Don't call them or I'll smash your face in."
He cut off her 999 call and disconnected the phone when the operator tried to call back. He then used the phone to call friends and relatives to help cover his tracks. He asked his step-dad Robin Scholes to take them back to their family home in High Matlock Road, Stannington and they took Miss Cash into the house.
Sheffield Crown Court was told he had convictions dating back to the age of 16 including aggravated vehicle taking, driving without a licence, driving with no insurance, shoplifting and breaching community orders.
The Honorary Recorder of Sheffield, Judge Alan Goldsack, gave him an indeterminate custodial sentence ordering him to serve a minimum four-and-a-half years before he can be considered for parole. He was banned from driving for 10 years.
Bennett's 48-year-old mother and 39-year-old step-father were charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice along with Bennett's friend Steven Scott, 19, of Greengates Lane, High Green, who set fire to the Subaru with Scholes after the crash in an effort to destroy evidence .
Miss Cash's father Stanley slammed the sentences as a "joke", adding: "I am prepared to hang for what I would do to all of them. They have still got their sons but I have lost my daughter."
Speaking after the case DI Tom Whiteley from South Yorkshire Police said: "It is important that we realise it is an indeterminate sentence and in effect Bennett has been given a life sentence."
Miss Kilner Farr's father Shaun, whose daughter still suffers back pain from injuries sustained in the crash, said: "I think the sentences are an insult. Six months for perverting the course of justice is nothing, it is disgusting. They have stopped the life of Kirsty.
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