A speeding agricultural college student who killed his friend in a crash has been detained in a Young Offender Institution for four years and four months.
Jacob Gwennap, 20, was also banned from driving for seven years after he pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving of a fellow Bicton College student.
Exeter Crown Court heard that Gwennap ignored another friend’s plea to slow down, and minutes after leaving the college in East Devon, ploughed into a wall on a bridge in a nearby village, where the speed limit was 30mph.
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Front-seat passenger Vincent Dennis, 18, who was wearing a seat belt, suffered a head injury and died at the scene. He had been studying land-based engineering and also worked on a farm.
No seat belt
Gwennap, who was 19 at the time of the crash in May 2021, was not wearing a seat belt and suffered serious wounds.
The back-seat passenger, who was also wearing a seat belt, had urged Gwennap to slow down. He escaped with just a bruised head.
The court heard that just hour before the crash, the three friends had been out celebrating the end of their exams with others from the college.
But Gwennap was well under the drink-driving limit at the time as he sped the two miles from the Bicton College campus to East Budleigh village – some two miles away – reaching speeds at 90mph at times.
Exeter Crown Court heard that Mr Dennis was “geeing up” Gwennap as he sped along the B3178 road in his Ford Fiesta.
The court heard the back-seat passenger told police: “I knew it was going to end badly.”
Prosecutor Lee Bremridge said Gwennap knew the road and “was aware of the hazard”.
‘Bitterly tragic’
Mr Jason Beal, defence barrister, said: “These cases are always bitterly tragic.” He added that his client “bears the responsibility for that night and will always do so”.
Sentencing Gwennap, Judge Timothy Rose told him: “You were driving at utterly excessive speeds in a most dangerous way. You extinguished a life, full of promise.”
The judge said the high-speed impact caused the car to spilt into pieces. The scene was one of devastation and the “most terrible outcome” and Gwennap showed an “intense disregard” for his passengers and other road users.
He added that Gwennap, of Trevervan Farm, St Buryan, near Penzance, west Cornwall, ignored the plea to slow down and knew the hazard of the bridge having driven over it before, but still drove at “horrendously excessive speed”.
