Drag race claimed life of 22-year-old

Monday 30 March 2015

A young man killed in a crash on Victoria Avenue was in the middle of an illegal high-speed drag race when he lost control of his car, which flew across the central reservation and hit an oncoming vehicle.

An inquest into the death of 22-year-old Vitor Dinarte Fernandes on 30 December 2013 has found that he died of a severe head injury after racing at speeds of up to 78 mph with friends.

The inquest was formally closed yesterday, with police giving evidence. Last October, the friends that Vitor was racing with were taken to the Royal Court – one of them, Jose Silva, was jailed for three years for causing death by dangerous driving.

At the time, the then Bailiff Sir Michael Birt described the accident, saying that the blameless driver of the car that Vitor’s vehicle struck was lucky to have escaped with her life.

He said: “[The car] crashed through the central reservation and hit an oncoming car coming from the other direction causing injury to the driver of that car and, having seen what happened, she was very lucky not to have been more seriously injured, if not killed. 

“There was another driver behind her who was lucky also not to have been involved in the crash because she managed to find a split-second gap to get through the flying car of Mr Fernandes.”

The inquest, presided over by Deputy Viscount Mark Harris, found that Vitor had been racing in the moments before his death.

The formal finding of the inquest was: “That he was pronounced dead in the late evening of Monday, 30^th December 2013 at Jersey General Hospital; death being due to severe head injury sustained earlier that evening when, whilst driving his car at high speed illegally racing another car westbound along Victoria Avenue, he lost control of his own car near to the First Tower junction, spinning across the central reservation and hitting an oncoming car in the opposing eastbound carriageway, before coming to a halt in Spur Road, First Tower, St Helier; Jose Joao Santos Silva, the driver of the other car which was illegally racing, having pleaded guilty to the charge of causing death by dangerous driving and sentenced by the Royal Court on Friday, 24^th October 2014.”