A barmaid was ‘well over’ the drink-drive limit when one of her passengers died in a crash with six passengers in her small car, a court has heard.
Karla Dodds offered to take six people to a house party in the back of her Hyundai i10, with four seated in the back, and one ‘reluctantly’ climbing into the hatchback’s boot, jurors were told.
Passenger Truman Hub had his head out of a rear passenger window when Dodds lost control and collided with a lamppost in North Tyneside on November 20, 2022.
Hub died when the car overturned. Newcastle Crown Court heard Dodds, 25, of Links Avenue, Whitley Bay, has admitted causing Truman’s death by careless driving while over the drink-drive limit but she denies causing death by dangerous driving and is standing trial.
Prosecutor Andrew Espley told the court Dodds had been working as a barmaid in a local pub Saturday night before going out drinking in Whitley Bay from around 11.30 pm.
‘After spending a couple of hours in the Havana nightclub, in Whitley Bay, she picked up six other people to take them to a house party in Shiremoor. By then she was well over the legal limit for alcohol for driving,’ he told the court.
Mr Espley said one man got in the boot of the Hyundai and four got in the back of the car, including Truman, who was from North Shields and his girlfriend.
The court heard that Dodds wasn’t speeding ‘excessively’, but the car’s speed was too fast ‘in all the circumstances’.
‘The driver’s side of the car hit a lamppost on the driver’s side as she came off the roundabout, heading to a fairly sharp left. The collision itself caused the car to turn over onto its passenger side, crushing Truman Hub, who was still hanging out of the window,’ he said.
‘The car then turned on the roof, coming to a rest on the driver’s side, by now a short distance from the point of collision.’
Mr Epsley added: ‘She accepts her driving caused the death of Truman Hub but she denies her driving was dangerous.’
Hub was ‘unlikely’ to have died if he wasn’t hanging out of the window, the court heard, but the car rolled over because of Dodds’ ‘dangerous’ driving.
Mr Espley said another passenger said Dodds had offered to drive them and said she’d had a few drinks but was ‘ok to drive’ and he told her to have some water.
He claimed she was driving too fast and said he told her to slow down and turned the music down at one point but she ignored him and turned the music back up. He said he also told her she had ‘far too many people in the car’.
That passenger said he was unconscious after the crash, before hearing Dodds screaming, ‘We’ve got to go,’ before Dodds and a friend fled the scene. He began CPR on Hub but couldn’t find a pulse.
Hub’s girlfriend recalled there were four passengers in the back of the car – none of whom were wearing seatbelts. She had grabbed her boyfriend back into the car after he initially stuck his head out, but Hub did so again before the crash.
The court heard Dodds was nearly twice the drink-drive limit almost four hours after the collision.
When later interviewed by police, she said the ‘whole thing was a bit of a blur’ and she didn’t know Truman was fatally injured when she left and was ‘in shock’.
Asked if she thought it was dangerous to have seven people in a car designed for five people, she said: ‘Yes I absolutely agree with that and I apologise.’
Dodds denies causing death by dangerous driving and the trial continues.
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