Drink driver who killed baby boy and his aunt after crashing into their car at 140mph is jailed for 17 years: Mother tells how she was left searching motorway for eight-month-old son after he was thrown from seat

A distraught mother was left searching a motorway for her eight-month-old baby after a killer driver smashed into her car at 140mph while three times over the drink drive limit and using his phone.

Darryl Anderson, 38, was playing 'Russian roulette' with the lives of other drivers when he killed Zackary Blades and the infant's aunt, air stewardess Karlene Warner, 30, a judge said today as she jailed him for 17 years. 

Anderson took a photograph on his phone of the dashboard of his Audi Q5 three seconds before impact, which showed he was driving at 141mph and the vehicle was flashing a red collision warning alert.

However, Durham Crown Court heard he was so drunk and distracted that he didn't even see the Peugeot 308 feet ahead of him being driven by Zacakary's mother Sharlona Warner.

The impact was such that it ripped away the back of Ms Warner's car and jettisoned Zackary, who was strapped into his baby seat, a distance of 50 yards across the A1M between Chester-le-Street and Durham.

In mid air the infant was thrown from his seat and landed on the roadside verge on the opposite carriageway, eventually to be discovered by a lorry driver as his distraught mother was waving down oncoming traffic screaming 'Zack, Zack.'

As she realised her son could not have survived the horror, Ms Warner was also told that her sister was dead in the passenger seat of the vehicle.

Anderson showed a shocking disregard for his actions, later caught on body worn camera footage telling police: 'Everyone makes mistakes.'

Later at hospital he flirted with nurses and cracked jokes and accident investigators found an empty bottle of vodka in the wreckage of his vehicle.

When he later realised the enormity of his actions, Anderson made up a story that he'd picked up a mystery hitchhiker, who was driving the car at the time of impact.

Both cars had driven away from Newcastle International Airport in the early hours of May 31 this year, Karlene being picked up by Ms Warner after a holiday with Zackary 'safely strapped into his car seat in the rear.'

Anderson was returning from Antalya where he had been on holiday with his wife - however his behaviour had been so bad that she had left him and flown home early.

The couple had not been married long, but when he collected the keys for his car from a car park attendant, Anderson told him: 'I'm going to go to Bradford to find a new wife.'

He was told by Judge Joanne Kidd: 'You played Russian roulette with the lives of every man, woman and child you passed on that journey. 

'The level of your intoxication, your aggressive and entitled driving, your speed and the use of your phone made it inevitable you would come into collision with another road user.

'At a speed of 140 miles per hour, with your foot fully depressed on the accelerator you were inevitably going to cause serious injury and the probability of a fatality.'

Judge Kidd referred to the heartbreaking statement read to the court by Zackary's mother as she described the horror of being unable to find him.

Wiping tears from her face, Ms Warner said she remembered the impact which sent her car spinning.

She looked to her left to see Karlene clearly badly injured in the passenger air bag but knew she had to try to help Zackary, calling to Karlene: 'I will came back for you.'

Ms Warner said: 'I ran to the left rear side of the car where Zackary would have been, but there was no back of the car, it was crushed.

'I could not see my baby, I was standing on wreckage, picking up smashed bits of the car and throwing them, trying to find him but he was not there. I was screaming his name and I called 999.

'I saw the other driver and I ran to him and said ''Help, I cannot find my baby. I was screaming Zack, Zack.

'He did not help, he never helped. I began running up to the traffic waving my arms and screaming at cars to help me.'

On the opposite carriageway a lorry driver pulled over and warned her not to run towards the traffic.

Ms Warner found Zackary's car seat and turned it over, only to find he was not inside it. Then a shout from the lorry driver confirmed her worst fears when he said he could see Zackary.

She said: 'I heard a painful scream from the lorry driver, he was shouting 'he's here, your baby is here.' I ran over and I found Zackary on the grass.

'I picked up my dead baby from the side of the road, he had been propelled 50M and had landed on his head.'

Turning briefly to Anderson, who refused to lift his head to meet her gaze, she said: 'You have left a broken shell of a woman and a childless mother.'