A TEENAGER who caused the death of a father and daughter after smashing into their car while driving at 113mph did not even check on his victims immediately following the accident, a court heard.

Instead Mario Dzhambazov, 19, paced up and down the scene on his phone close to his BMW, while witnesses stopped and checked on 41-year-old Sarah Liddell and her father Michael Liddell, 68, who died instantly.

Ms Liddell, a carer and mother of two children aged 13 and ten, was taken to James Cook University Hospital but her injuries were non-survivable.

The Bulgarian national was jailed for eight years, and banned from driving for ten, after he was sentenced at Teesside Crown Court today.

The Northern Echo:

Witnesses reported seeing Dzhambazov’s BMW being driven ‘at about 100 mph’ along the A171 Guisborough bypass.

CCTV footage from a nearby Co-op garage which was later examined by police showed that he was actually driving at 113mph just 70 metres before the Woodhouse roundabout.

One witness said he was going so fast the car ‘appeared to be bouncing’ on the wet road.

Paul Abrahams, prosecuting, told the court that Dzhambazov’s BMW smashed into the Liddell’s car, a Hyundai I30 driven by Sarah, as they were about to exit the roundabout.

He said a witness had said the BMW ‘smashed into the passenger side of the car, which made it spin.

“The impact made both cars disintegrate. Car parts were going all over,” he said.

The witness ran to check if the Sarah, of Marske, and Michael, a farmer from Moorsholm, were still alive while others called the emergency services.

He said Dzhambazov ‘was walking around on his phone’ before being detained by a firefighter after he tried to leave the scene. He was uninjured.

Sarah’s partner Martin Durant told, in a victim impact statement, of the moment he had to tell their children they had lost both their mother and their grandfather, and of the devastating impact losing their ‘best friend’ had had on them.

“The actions of another that day changed our family’s lives forever,” he said.

“Richard, Sarah’s brother, is desperately trying to run the farm, but he is broken.”

The court heard that Sarah, her brother Richard and their father Michael had been ‘exceptionally close’ as a family unit since they lost their mother to cancer when they were children.

Richard lived next door to his father, ran the family farm with him, and saw him every day.

Michael was said to be a quiet man who ‘adored his family’, while Sarah was an ‘amazing mum’.

Richard said: “Within hours of talking to them last, I was in a mortuary.

“My family has been wiped out. The pain is indescribable.”

Dzhambazov, who was staying with relatives in Whitby, had planned to take the BMW back to his native Bulgaria and had only picked it up the day before after it was purchased by his sister-in-law.

Sohail Mohammed, mitigating on behalf of the defendant, said he was driving in foreign conditions and had no previous convictions as well as a clean licence.

He said Dzhambazov was ‘extremely upset’ about his actions and had written a letter to the family taking full responsibility for his actions.

“He can’t sleep or eat from the guilt he feels,” he said. “He says, I am alive and they are dead.

“He has expressed remorse and regret. He is someone who is very young and acted very irresponsibly and unfortunately his actions have caused the deaths of two people.”

Judge Stephen Ashurst said: “You drove in a way that made it impossible to negotiate the roundabout safely.

“For reasons the surviving family will never understand you decided to drive in a ludicrously fast way.

“There was no reason for it and the consequences have been absolutely dreadful for all concerned.

“It has deeply affected three generations of this family.

“If anything, the legacy of both Michael and Sarah must be this very united and proud family.”

He said the facts of the case ‘are horrific’ and that Dzhambazov’s car had become ‘airborne’ when it collided with Ms Liddell’s vehicle.

“You remarkably got out of your vehicle unscathed,” he told the defendant. “The same cannot be said for the victims of your appalling driving.”

Lead investigator, Temporary Inspector Darren Breslin from the Cleveland and Durham Specialist Operations Unit, said: “Mario Dzhambazov has been sentenced to eight years in prison following a horrific crash which killed a father and daughter.

“Their heartbroken family will never be the same and it is all due to his dangerous driving and his disregard for others on the day of this crash.

“The whole family, including Sarah’s partner and young children, are utterly devastated by their loss.

“Nothing will ever make up for the loss of Michael and Sarah, however, I hope that today’s sentence can provide them with some comfort and I hope that they can now move forward with their lives.”

Paying tribute to his father and sister, after Dzhambazov's sentencing, family-member Richard said their lives had been turned "upside down".

He said: “What happened that day will stay with us forever. You don’t think that anything like this will happen to you, but it did, and in an instant our lives were ripped apart.

“We still can’t understand why anyone would drive with such disregard for everyone else on the road and the law. Because of him our lives are upside down and we don’t know how things are ever going to be OK again. 

“Dad was our rock, a great dad and granddad. Sarah was my big sister, always keeping me right, and a brilliant mum who loved her family more than anything. My niece and nephew will grow up without her and that breaks our hearts.  

“We want to thank the police, ambulance service and staff in the Intensive Care Unit who did everything they could to help Dad and Sarah. I would also like to thank our friends, neighbours and the wider community for all their help and support.

“All we can say now is please show respect for everyone else on the roads. What is a few more seconds on your journey compared to facing what we’re going through. We don’t want anyone else to feel this pain.”