A woman died after her boyfriend crashed a BMW while traveling at speeds of up to 136mph during a police pursuit, a court has heard. Taylor Jenkins suffered fatal injuries after 24-year-old Kane Farragher drove on the wrong side of a dual carriageway near Sunderland.
The Incident
Farragher, from Birkenhead but of no fixed address, was banned from driving at the time of the incident on Sunday, March 1, and had taken drugs. Police were pursuing the car when it crashed into a taxi, also injuring a rear-seat passenger. A blood sample taken after the crash showed Farragher was excessively over the legal limits for cocaine, cannabis, ecstasy, and ketamine. His reading for a breakdown of cocaine was around 14 times over the legal limit, 12 times over the MDMA limit, more than twice the limit for ketamine, and 40 percent over the limit for cannabis, Newcastle Crown Court heard.
Court Proceedings
Kevin Wardlaw, prosecuting, said the BMW that Farragher was driving triggered an automatic camera notification on Tyneside that it was a vehicle of interest to Police Scotland. Northumbria Police officers attempted to stop the car on the Felling by-pass in Gateshead, but Farragher drove into a coned-off section of the carriageway and sped away to avoid being boxed in. Reaching speeds of up to 136mph, Farragher evaded the pursuit, which was called off when he headed the wrong way down the A19. The fatal collision with a taxi happened near a Nissan factory, around seven miles from where the pursuit had started and one mile from where he joined the A19.
Mr Wardlaw said that Ms Jenkins, 24, died from the impact, and the rear passenger suffered skull and rib fractures. Farragher was largely unhurt as he was trapped in the driver’s seat by the airbag. The defendant, who held his head in his hands for much of the sentencing, which he followed on a link from prison, was disqualified from driving at the time, having been banned for four years in 2023. In 2021, he was convicted of aggravated vehicle taking and dangerous driving after police tried to stop him and others riding stolen motorbikes dangerously.
Sentencing
In an interview with police, Farragher denied being the driver but later admitted causing death by dangerous driving, drug-driving offenses, driving while disqualified, and causing serious injury to his friend at a previous court hearing. The court heard that Farragher grew up in a socially deprived area of Merseyside, that his mother was jailed, and that he lived with his grandmother until her death. Aged around 16, he moved to Scotland, where he met Ms Jenkins.
Judge Penny Moreland said the couple traveled with friends to Newcastle for an event that night. She told him: “You made a deliberate decision to ignore the rules of the road. There was a complete disregard of the dangers to others.” She said it was a prolonged course of action, “driving in the wrong direction, at high speed, on a dual carriageway, at night,” and that his judgment must have been impaired by drugs. Judge Moreland added: “You undertook a lengthy course of the most dangerous driving one can imagine. You reached speeds of up to 130mph in your efforts to get away and traveled southbound on the northbound carriageway.” The judge jailed him for 12 years and nine months and banned him from driving for 13 and a half years, after which he must take an extended test.
Victim Impact
In victim impact statements, family members said Ms Jenkins, who was from Edinburgh, was a keen showjumper and was loving, hard-working, and had a beautiful smile. Her father, Williams Jenkins, said: “Her loss is beyond anything I can bear.” Her sister, Ellis Jenkins, added: “The impact of losing her is something I will carry with me forever.”
