Hull Crown Court
A father who killed his three-year-old son while racing another driver along a motorway has been jailed.
Israr Muhammed, 41, was driving at speeds of more than 100 mph in his 16-year-old Honda Civic.
In the car was his wife, two sons aged three and eight and his 11-year-old daughter.
Muhammed – who was racing Adam Molloy, 29, along the M62 in East Yorkshire – lost control of his car when a tyre blew.
The car spun across three lanes of the motorway.
It crashed into a tree as Molloy sped off.
Muhammed’s son Say Han Ali was fatally injured.
His car seat had not been secured properly.
Mrs Ali spent months in hospital in a coma and the couple’s daughter was left with serious facial injuries.
Hull Crown Court was told how Muhammed had been seen driving in “an erratic and unsafe manner”.
The two cars were travelling more than 100 mph and were only 35 feet apart.
Judge David Tremberg said:
“Other drivers formed the impression that you were racing and driving like idiots.
“I’m satisfied that you, Israr Muhammed, had a whole array of safe choices you could have made to avoid rising to the bait.
“Nobody forced you to exceed the speed limit, nobody could have done, nobody forced you to stay pig-headedly in the outside lane of the motorway because the middle lane was clear for a long stretch.
Adam Molloy
“You, Adam Molloy, elected not to give evidence at the trial.
“That’s not surprising because no-one was forcing you to drive as you did and you could not have had an answer to why you were driving in such an aggressive and intimidating fashion at such a high speed and so close to the car ahead.”
Muhammed, of Batley, West Yorkshire, was found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving, two counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving, and one count of causing death while uninsured.
Molloy, of Normanton, West Yorkshire, was also jailed for four-and-a-half years following his conviction at a trial last month of causing death by dangerous driving and two counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving.
The pair were also banned from driving for six years and three months each.
The judge told the court: “This young boy was entirely blameless and had his whole life ahead of him.
“Your offending has caused not just physical harm, but emotional harm.
“That evidence witnesses who stopped to help had to recount caused grown men tears and it is something they will never forget.”
