The occupants of a car which killed a little boy when his parents’ vehicle was rammed in a high-speed chase had ’25 pints’ before the horror smash, a court has heard.
Four-year-old Peter Maughan was in his parents’ car with his baby sister, driving through Kent, when they passed mum Hayley’s cousins, Owen Maughan and his father, Patrick, on June 1 last year.
The family were just five minutes ahead of the defendants in their vehicle, who had spent the afternoon and evening drinking in Rochester, with Owen having 12 bottles of lager and his father 13 pints.
Owen was behind the wheel, said to have been in a ‘fury’ while following the family and clipping the rear of the family’s truck at 60mph.
In an interview 12 days after the fatal smash, Hayley described ‘panicking, screaming and her heart racing’ as she, her husband and their two children were being chased.
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The impact caused the vehicle to spin out of control and roll up to three times before coming to a rest, upright, on the wrong side of the road and facing a hedge.
Peter, who was thrown from the Ford Ranger and found by his mum lying face down on grass some distance away, suffered ‘severe and devastating’ injuries to his head, chest and abdomen and was pronounced dead at the hospital.
While Hayley and one-year-old Annarica escaped with minor injuries, her partner, Lovell Mahon, suffered multiple fractures and brain trauma leaving him unlikely to ever walk again, jurors at Maidstone Crown Court have been told.
27-year-old Owen Maughan has admitted to manslaughter in respect of Peter, who was affectionately known by loved ones as Peter Rabbit, but denies murder.
His 54-year-old father denies both murder and manslaughter.
It is the prosecution’s case that in accepting he deliberately rammed Lovell’s vehicle, Owen Maughan intended to kill or cause really serious harm, while Patrick, as front seat passenger, was ‘actively encouraging’ it.
Hayley herself told police that her uncle was ‘blood red’ in the face with anger, ‘spitting and frothing’ at the mouth just seconds before the crash.
Having also described the collision as deliberate, she added Patrick Maughan had ‘revved up’ the situation.
The court was told it was ‘by chance’ that the two parties came together on the A2 that night and that the reason for any dispute between them was not known.
Hayley’s video interview with the police was played to jurors on the third day of the trial, where she described how the family had been ‘happy, laughing and joking’ as they drove along.
However, she then noticed the Maughans’ truck when it pulled up beside them, and that Lovell had said it was “trying to come on top” of them.
She also described how it had weaved left to right and gone backwards and forwards, but that at no stage had it got ahead of them while on the four-lane carriageway.
Some of the pursuit was also filmed by Hayley using WhatsApp and sent, along with a series of voice notes, to her mum, Erica.
At one stage, she captured the moment both vehicles, having left the A2 at Pepperhill, pulled up alongside each other at the roundabout at the end of the slip road.
As abuse was exchanged, Lovell could be heard shouting at the defendants that there were children in his truck and offering to fight later on.
It was then approximately 320m from the roundabout, and a mile from their home in Brakefield Road, Southfleet, that the fatal crash occurred.
Asked by police about seatbelts, Hayley said she did not have hers on, and although the children had been strapped in when they drove out that evening, Peter had a habit of undoing his or putting it behind his back.
Explaining she had not double-checked because of her panic, she added: ‘Maybe if I’d checked, he would have been alive, but I didn’t. I was so scared I didn’t think about it. I just thought ‘get home, I’m safe at home, get home’.’
After the crash, Hayley lifted her daughter from the wreckage and found her son’s body, tried to resuscitate him before a passing Tesla driver, alerted by her screams for help, stopped.
He then drove the mum and youngsters to nearby Darent Valley Hospital, where Peter was pronounced dead just after 10pm.
A passenger from the Tesla stayed at the scene to look for Lovell Mahon, the court heard.
Hayley Maughan told police she could not think of any reason Owen Maughan would have rammed their vehicle. She said there was no feud and her husband did not know either Owen or Patrick Maughan.
Hayley told the court: ‘It wasn’t an accident. They knew what they were doing. They had enough time to think. They chased us from, I think it was Cobham, Shorne.’
The trial continues.
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