Speeding Porsche driver who tried to blame dying friend for crash is jailed for seven years

Haulage contractor Barry Holmes, 33, put his friend Richard Whitelock's heartbroken family through months of further anguish by repeatedly lying about who had been driving the blue 911 Carrera GT3 at the time of the crash.

Holmes only changed his account and admitted attempting to pervert the course of justice after the police spent months investigating the smash at a cost of £80,000.

'Callous': Barry Holmes repeatedly denied driving the Porsche 911 when his passenger Richard Whitelock, right, was killed

Holmes was convicted yesterday of causing Mr Whitelock's death by dangerous driving.

Judge Geoffrey Marson QC told him it was a bad case, aggravated by his callousness and selfishness in insisting he had not been driving.

He said: 'It is impossible to measure the anguish which that must have caused to Richard Whitelock's family.'

The court heard that the Porsche belonged to 21-year-old Mr Whitelock but he had allowed Holmes to drive it from Gildersome towards Bradford, West Yorks.

During the trial at Leeds Crown Court, prosecutor Andrew Dallas told how the £80,000 supercar was doing 103mph on the 60mph Drighlington bypass late on July 19, 2006 when Holmes lost control.

It left the carriageway, struck a lamppost and barrel-rolled three times before flipping on to its roof.

Mr Whitelock, a plant hire boss of Gargrave, near Skipton, North Yorks, suffered multiple fatal injuries and died in hospital the next day.

The court heard that he was trapped in the upturned car, which was resting on a demolished lamppost, when Holmes first denied being the driver.

The judge told Holmes, from Addingham, West Yorks, he had been driving at a 'grossly excessive speed' when he crashed.

He conceded that Holmes was a hard-working man with a clean driving licence at the time and had not set out to cause harm.

But he added that drinking at least four pints of lager had impaired Holmes's ability to drive that night.

Supercar: A Porsche GT3 like the one crashed by Holmes

The judge also dismissed the defence claims that undulations in the road and a problem with the car's suspension could have contributed to the crash, saying it would not have happened unless Holmes had been driving dangerously.

He said it was a 'human tragedy' that had left Mr Whitelock's family devastated and no term of imprisonment could begin to comfort them for the loss of a 'priceless life'.

The judge branded Holmes's behaviour at the crash scene and afterwards as 'callous and selfish' as his eventual admission that he crashed the car was prompted not by guilt but by the expert evidence gathered by the police.

Holmes was also banned from driving for seven years and must take an extended re-test before he gets behind the wheel again.

In a statement after the case, Mr Whitelock's family said: 'We are happy that Richard's name has been cleared. We have needlessly suffered for two years because of Holmes's lies.'

After the verdict, in a statement read to the court Mr Whitelock's mother Sheila spoke of her son's love of cars and said not knowing the truth about the crash had a devastating effect on their family and friends.

Mr Dallas said police suspected Holmes was lying and became determined to prove it.

Senior officers authorised £16,700 to be spent gathering expert evidence, while manpower costs amounted to £61,000.

During the trial the jury heard that Holmes had claimed the Porsche swerved to avoid an oncoming car which was overtaking another. Prosecutors believe he invented the other two 'phantom vehicles'.