Karla Dodds, 25, was ‘well over’ the drink drive limit when she piled six friends into her small Hyundai i10 and drove them to a house party before losing control of the vehicle and smashing it into a lamppost
Drunk bar worker jailed for causing fatal crash with seven people in hatchback
This is the moment a drunk barmaid sobbed and asked police “whose dead?” after cramming six of her pals into a small hatchback and crashing it – leaving one dead. Former boarding school pupil Karla Dodds, 25, was “well over” the drink-drive limit when she drove the group to a house party in her Hyundai i10 – with one person in the boot and four in the back seat.
During the journey, one of her pals, Truman Hub, hung his head out of the rear passenger window shortly before Dodds lost control of the car and hit a lamppost. The Hyundai then flipped as it sped through North Tyneside in November 2022, crushing the 22-year-old. Dodds was today jailed for 12 years and banned from driving for 13 years after being found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving.
On the night of the crash, she wrapped up a shift at a Whitley Bay bar and later went to a nightclub where she claimed to have drunk two glasses of wine and two tequila shots. Police say the 25-year-old showed a “lack of remorse” after what happened, having been caught drug driving while waiting for her trial date at court.
They released bodycam footage of Dodds being arrested outside her home after she fled the scene of the horror collision, where she was heard sobbing and repeatedly asking arresting officers “who’s dead”. After learning she was being arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving, Dodds said: “Please, tell me who’s dead.”
In a victim impact statement, Truman’s mum Rozalind Hub said her “heart is dead” and she is still haunted by the “chilling screams” from when she found out her son had died. She added: “Life is unbearable and I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve been suicidal and have thought many times throughout the day how could I end my life and be with my gorgeous boy.
“Everyone knows how much I love all three of my sons. Now it’s a struggle because there’s always going to be one of my darling boys missing.” Rozalind said she feels “hostile, anger and even hatred” towards Dodds for “cruelly cutting our son’s life so short”.
Newcastle Crown Court heard Truman, who was in the car with his girlfriend Lauren, hung his out of the car window as Dodds sped round a roundabout with her music blaring. She then ploughed into a lamppost, causing the car to flip onto its passenger side and crush Truman. Prosecutor Andrew Espley said Dodds was “well over the legal limit for alcohol for driving” at the time.
Mr Espley acknowledged that Truman likely would have survived the crash if he was not hanging out the window, but said the car rolled over “because of the dangerous way Karla Dodds was driving”. He added: “She was well over the limit for alcohol, the car was overloaded, there were seven people in it, one of them was in the boot and on any view she knew her car was overloaded and there was someone hanging out of her rear passenger window.”
The passenger who was sitting in the boot said he felt a bump then banged his head as “everything seemed to spin or rotate”. Another one of Dodds’ friends claimed the bartender said she was “ok to drive” but continued speeding despite her friends begging her to slow down.
Truman’s girlfriend Lauren said she grabbed him after he stuck his head out of the window and told him to “stop acting like an idiot and get your head back in”. The group recalled the moment they regained consciousness after the crash to find Dodds shouting “we’ve got to go, we’ve got to go” before she fled the scene.
Mr Espley said: “We say it would have been obvious to Karla Dodds something had happened to Truman Hub, probably that he was seriously injured and she left the scene anyway with her friend.” The court heard Dodds, who was nearly twice the drink-drive limit almost four hours after the collision, told police the “whole thing was a bit of a blur”.
