Car thief sentenced for horror crash

Sands was sentenced at Haddington Sheriff Court

A car thief who caused a crash which left the daughter of a Northern Irish TV chef in a coma with serious brain injuries has been sentenced to 18 months at a young offenders' institution.

Kevin Sands, 19, suffered only slight bruising when he caused a head-on smash on a single track road near Haddington, East Lothian, which left Clare Taylor in a critical condition.

Haddington Sheriff Court heard that Sands did not stop to assist Ms Taylor, 29, the daughter of Irish chef Clare Connery.

The court was told that he peered into the wreckage of her vehicle then ran several miles away from the scene across muddy fields in February.

Very serious

The young woman was only saved when ambulance paramedics on a callout to a remote farm chanced across the accident scene.

Sands, who had earlier been convicted of stealing the car and driving dangerously on a wet and narrow country road, broke down and wept went he was sentenced.

Sheriff Ian Inglis gave Sands the 18 month sentence and insisted he was sending out a forceful message to other would-be car thieves.

He said the offences were "very serious" and as far as Ms Taylor was concerned "catastrophic".

Police tracked Sands through matching his DNA to saliva samples found on a bottle of Irn Bru in the stolen car and extensive CCTV footage proving he was the driver.

Celebrity chef

He eventually handed himself in and confessed, but a legal technicality meant he was not convicted of failing to stop and report the accident or attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Belfast-born Ms Taylor remains in a specialist head injury unit at Edinburgh's Astley Ainslie hospital 10 months after the incident,

Her mother Roberta Taylor - better known to Irish TV viewers as celebrity chef Clare Connery - has come out of retirement in France.

She has set up home in East Lothian to care for her daughter, who spends most of her time in a wheelchair and unable to talk properly or dress and feed herself.