JAILED: Drunk driver killed his own father in horror crash
A speeding drink driver who killed his own father in a crash has been jailed for six years.
Kuljinder Gakhal jumped a queue of traffic, ignored a red light and drove into the path of a 44-ton lorry, a judge heard.
The juggernaut jack-knifed as its driver braked but he could not stop the vehicle ploughing into the side of the S-Type Jaguar where 53-year-old passenger Daljit Singh Gakhal sat.
Moments earlier his 30-year-old son had almost lost control of the car, which he was not insured to drive, as it hurtled along the Birmingham New Road towards Dudley in drizzle at almost twice the 40mph speed limit, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.
Kuljinder undertook another car with a dashboard camera that allowed investigators to show the Jaguar was doing 77mph as it headed towards the junction with Tipton Road where traffic was waiting to turn right, said Miss Elizabeth Power, prosecuting.
Kuljinder ignored this and continued to the lights before suddenly turning right in front of the oncoming lorry at 10.40pm on May 20 last year.
The impact left him with a bleed on the brain, broken arm and fractured back. He was given a blood test which he later refused to allow police to test for alcohol content.
He had been convicted of drink-driving in June 2014 and driving while disqualified the following year. The ban had expired before the fatal crash.
When he finally allowed the blood sample to be tested. it registered 165. The legal limit is 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood.
Mr Peter Hunter, defending, said: “His father was his mentor and nothing can make good what he has done. His family do not blame him but he is a shell of the man he once was.” The Pinewood Studios chef from Thames Road, Slough, pleaded guilty to causing death by careless driving when under the influence of drink having failed to permit the analysis of a blood sample.
