A FIREFIGHTER rushed to a horror smash caused by two learner drivers only to see his daughter being pulled dead from a car.
Ella Smith, 21, was a passenger her Ford Ka as it was being driven by Jago Clarke when he crashed head-on into another car.
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He had been driving “competitively” in a convoy with Emma Price, who was in a Citroen, when the tragedy unfolded.
Both Clarke and pregnant Price were jailed for ten years each today for causing death by dangerous driving and causing serious injury by dangerous driving.
In an emotional victim impact statement, Ella’s dad Adrian told Swansea Crown Court how he had been called to the crash scene unaware his daughter was involved.
The firefighter said: “Once in attendance I carried out a scene assessment and I moved around one of the vehicles and was stood between the two involved.
“I noticed a female being pulled clear of one of them, I noticed a tattoo on her leg and immediately recognised it as Ella’s.
“I turned to the car and checked the registration – it was Ella’s.
“As I looked back they were pulling a blanket over Ella.”
The dad told how “at that moment, although surrounded by many people I was the loneliest man alive”.
He said he was “haunted” by not being able to tell his wife over the phone that Ella had died as he told how the tragedy would “eat away at me for the rest of my life”.
Adrian, who was forced to take early retirement, added: “I knew something nobody else did, I knew my oldest daughter was dead.”
The court was told Ella had gone to pick up Clarke from the seaside where he had spent the day with Price and some pals.
He was seen sipping from a bottle of Budweiser and mixing vodka and Sourz before he got into the driver’s seat – despite not having a licence.
One friend said he told Clarke “not to be a f***ing idiot” but he still drove away from the beach with Ella in the passenger seat.
Just moments before the horror, Clarke was seen swerving at 70mph as he raced Price, who also only had a provisional licence, through Pembrokeshire.
He then lost control and smashed head-on into the path of an oncoming car – killing Ella and seriously injuring the passenger in the other vehicle.
Price was not involved in the crash but she was found to be equally responsible due to her driving just moments earlier.
The pregnant mum-of-one was slammed by Judge Paul Thomas after she “lied through your teeth” during the trial.
He also said Clarke had “tried to act the big man” as he jailed the pair and banned them from driving for six years.
The judge said: “When you two decided to have a race in your cars through the country roads of Pembrokeshire on the way back from the beach at speeds above 70mph when you were unqualified and inexperienced drivers I do not suppose you ever contemplated the decision to do so would tragically end one young woman’s life and have a devastating calamitous impact on so many other people.
“But you should have realised just that – cars kill especially when driven by young people showing off as you two were with not thought to the risk that you put other people at.
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“That day, through the circumstances you created an accident was almost inevitable.
“Ella Smith had everything to live for, she was only 21 with a life full of promise and love with even more promise and love ahead of her.”
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