A DANGEROUS drug driver from Stourbridge killed his friend in a crash, moved his body and planted the car keys in the dead man’s pocket to make it look like he had been driving, a court was told.

Aaron Guest, already twice banned from driving, had taken cocaine and two other drugs when he lost control of his car at speed on a bend, struck a telegraph pole, crashed through a hedge and rolled the car into a field along the Heightington Road near Bewdley.

His passenger, Ben Priest, aged 23, of Pedmore, was crushed between the Renault Clio and the ground as the car rolled. Neither Guest or Mr Priest were wearing seatbelts at the time of the fatal crash on June 30 this year, Worcester Crown Court heard on Monday.

Members of Mr Priest’s family, including his mother and father, were allowed to sit inside the well of the court to observe as Guest, who kept his head lowered throughout the hearing, was jailed by judge Robert Juckes QC for five years and three months.

In victim personal statements Mr Priest's parents said they were still ‘haunted’ by the circumstances of their son’s death and angry at the way Guest had lied that their son was driving.

Guest, aged 28, of Barn Close, Stourbridge, admitted causing death by dangerous driving, driving while disqualified and perverting the course of public justice, driving without insurance and drug driving with three different drugs in his body, including cocaine.

Paul Whitfield, prosecuting, said the car rolled, ending up on its roof. The passenger side window had been open as it rolled and Mr Priest was crushed between the car and the ground.

He said: “Ben Priest died instantly at the scene from his injuries. He would not have been able to move himself into the position he was found, outside the car, lying in the field.

“The Crown’s case is that the body had been moved from the vehicle by this defendant.

“He took steps to mislead the investigating authority to suggest Ben Priest had been driving. Principally he did this by placing the only key there was for the operation of this vehicle in the friend’s pocket where it was found by the police later on.”

The defendant, who was able to walk way from the scene, also applied the handbrake after the crash - the court heard.

He was offered a lift by an off-duty police officer and got out of the car where he was picked up by a driver in a blue Vauxhall and driven from the scene. The particulars of this vehicle were noted and Guest was arrested.

He gave a no comment interview to police but named Ben Priest as the driver, a deceit he maintained until October when he changed his plea.

Guest had been disqualified from driving on December 21, 2017, for three years but bought the Clio from a man in the north just months after the ban was imposed.

Crash investigators found 61-and-a-half metre skid marks on the road near the crash scene which suggested the wheels had locked up.

No defects were found with the vehicle or the road surface which could have contributed to the collision. Investigators did not supply evidence about the speed at which Guest was driving but Mr Whitfield said it was ‘very much due to driver error’ and he had been driving too fast to negotiate the bend.

A blood sample taken four-and-a-half hours after the crash which revealed Guest was 10 times the limit for one drug.

He also had cocaine in his body of 15µg/L, over the legal limit of 10µg/L and a 6.6µg/L of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (a metabolite of cannabis), more than three times the limit of 2µg/L.

The victim personal statements of Mr Priest's mother and father were read out to the court, both of whom said they had been caused additional distress by the defendant’s failure to admit the offences until October 23.

His mother, Julia Anne Green, said she was devastated by the death of her son, who also has a brother Jordan, aged 21.

Miss Green said: “I’m lost, numb, angry and my heart has been ripped apart.”

She felt she had been unable to say goodbye to her son properly and, after the second post-mortem, she was advised by the undertakers not to view his body.

“I had to say goodbye looking at a coffin, not my boy” she said.

Miss Green said if Guest had pleaded guilty straight away she would have been able to say goodbye properly and said: “I’m a shell of the person I was before Ben’s death.”

Richard Priest, Ben’s father, said he was ‘haunted’ by the way his son had died and it has also had a ‘massive financial impact’ on the family’ and they had to borrow money to cover the funeral costs.

Guest, the court was told, had 13 previous convictions for 20 offences including driving with excess alcohol and failure to provide a specimen for analysis which resulted in the three-year ban.

At the time of the offence he was also subject to a 16-week sentence suspended for 18 months after he got in a car while intoxicated and drove the vehicle at his mother, striking her a glancing blow which caused injury to a recently healed fracture of her right leg.

Abigail Nixon, defending, said Guest had pleaded guilty at the earliest available opportunity to perverting the course of justice notwithstanding his other pleas.

She accepted putting the keys in the dead man's pocket was an 'unattractive' feature of the case but also an unsophisticated strategy given the nature of Mr Priest's injuries.

Miss Nixon said: “He has, through me, asked me to express to your Honour, in front of Ben Priest’s family, remorse. He wanted to contact Ben Priest’s family from prison but has been told by the prison he is not allowed to do so bearing in mind the proceedings.”

Miss Nixon told the court he would have to live with what he had done and had psychiatric treatment because of ‘nightmares and flashbacks’.

“It’s perhaps more tragic to note neither young man was wearing a seatbelt” said Miss Nixon.

Guest was also injured in the crash, suffering fractured ribs and a broken nose but said her client accepted that what he did was 'shocking'.

Judge Robert Juckes QC said: "Moving his friend's body in that way. I have never come across it before."

As he jailed Guest he told him he had twice been disqualified from driving and that his decision to buy a car and drive it was 'calculated and callous and deliberate'.

Judge Juckes said Guest had been crushed but added: "What's more shocking was what you then did which was to pull him from the car where he lay dead and put him in a position which would make it possible to lie and say he had been the driver and, to add to that, to put the key to the car in his pocket."

As well as the jail term, the judge also banned Guest from driving for seven years and seven months.

Mr Priest's mother, Miss Green, however, said he should have been jailed for life and added: "It should be a life for a life."

She described her son as a 'loveable rogue' and 'one of kind'.