‘Boy Racer’ who bragged his BMW was like ‘Millennium Falcon’ caused catastrophic injuries in crash
17.05.2022 - 16:19
/ dailyrecord.co.uk
A tearaway “boy racer” who was boasting to friends and “driving like a maniac” at 80mph was to blame for a horrific accident that left a motorcyclist with catastrophic injuries that wrecked his life.
Joseph Chapman had just “dramatically improved” the speed of his already powerful BMW 335d car the same day and had bragged that it was now like the very fast Millennium Falcon starship from Star Wars.
It was an “accident waiting to happen” when he raced along a dual carriageway at such a “breathtakingly dangerous speed” that he could not avoid causing a collision that left the motorcyclist with lifelong serious problems, a court heard.
Chapman, 22, confessed to causing serious injury by dangerous driving on January 30 last year and failing to supply police with the PIN to his phone.
Dale Brook, prosecuting, said that Chapman was driving aggressively and too quickly at speeds of at least 80mph in a 40mph limit on Hedon Road, heading into Hull, at about 6.30pm when his BMW hit a Hyundai car that had moved out to avoid three slow-moving motorcycles.
Chapman’s car “shunted” the Hyundai with “great force” off the road, spinning it 180 degrees, and caused it to hit one of the motorcycles, ridden by a 27-year-old mechanic, who suffered “catastrophic” injuries.
Earlier that same day, Chapman, from Swanland, had taken the car to Redcar, Teesside, to a specialist software engineer where the BMW’s performance had been “dramatically improved” from 313 bhp to 427.
He later sent a message to the engineer saying: “Cheers, mate. It’s like Millennium Falcon ” - a reference to the “very fast spaceship” from the Star Wars films.
The motorcyclist’s bike had broken down after a throttle cable snapped and he was taking it to a BP petrol station