Crash death boy drove car 'fast - like he was in a game'

UNDERAGE DRIVER, 16, BOUGHT HONDA FROM MYSTERY SELLER DAYS BEFORE TRAGEDY

- By RUCSANDRA MOLDOVEANU

A TEENAGER was driving his car “fast - like he was in a game” just moments before crashing into a tree and losing his life.

Yazan Al-Jalam, who was 16, was in the vehicle with two friends when the collision happened on Radcliffe Road in West Bridgford just before 9pm on March 17.

An inquest into his death was held at Nottingham Coroner's Court yesterday by Nathanael Hartley, assistant coroner for Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.

The hearing was told the teenager was driving a black Honda Civic “at speed” from Nottingham towards Gamston.

The boy, from The Meadows, had only had the car for a few days.

One of his friends, in one of the back seats, described how the teenager “was properly putting his foot down” and was “driving so fast he [the friend] felt the car lose control”.

The same friend said Yazan was “driving fast - like he was in a game” and tried to tell him to slow down as the car was going “too fast” around bends, when he could see Yazan “panicking”.

The other friend, sitting in the front passenger seat, and with whom Yazan was “inseparable”, described the 16-year-old’s driving as “OK and sensible” but said he “could sometimes put his foot down”.