‘Silly’ selfies blamed for fatal car crashes after three teens killed

Drivers ‘showing off’ to get ‘likes’ on social media could be contributing to fatal road collisions, a coroner has said.

Matilda Seccombe, 16, had challenged her newly qualified friend Edward Spencer ‘you could have rolled the car, and I will kill you if we don’t die ourselves’ weeks before dying in a crash where Spencer was driving her home from school.

Linda Lee, assistant coroner at Coventry Coroner’s Court, said she may write to the government

Matilda, 16, and Harry Purcell, 17, died in the passenger seats of Spencer’s Ford Fiesta when it collided with an oncoming Fiat at 64mph.

Another boy, Frank Wormald, 16, also died in the crash in April 2023.

The crash took place just six weeks after Spencer, who was 17 at the time, had passed his driving test.

He pleaded guilty to three counts of causing death by careless driving earlier this year.

Prosecutors told Warwick Crown Court that Spencer had a history of ‘showing off’ behind the wheel.

The court heard that he had a ‘history of bad driving’ since he passed his test and ‘of showing off, taking risks, driving too quickly and failing to heed the warnings of those in the car with him’.

Videos showed Spencer passing a mobility scooter at more than 50mph in the weeks prior to the crash on the B4035 between Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, and Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire, the court heard.

Another showed him bragging about reversing so fast that he was ‘going to crash’.

The sentencing hearing in April was also told how just weeks before the fatal collision, Tilly sent Spencer a message in which she raised concerns about his driving.

The defendant replied: ‘Don’t underestimate me.’

Tilly’s mother Juilet Seccombe, 53, said at the inquest on Wednesday how she had discovered messages between the two about a previous near-miss.

Mrs Seccombe, who found the messages while looking for photos to use at Tilly’s funeral, said: ‘Tilly was having a go at Edward.

‘She wrote [that] “you could have rolled the car, and I will kill you if we don’t die ourselves.”‘ 

Her husband James, 55, added that he had seen a message Tilly had sent to a friend shortly before the crash in which she said: ‘It won’t be long for me with Ed’s driving.’

Spencer, of Newbold on Stour, Warwickshire, was sent to a young offenders’ institution for two years, and handed an eight-year driving ban.

He must take an extended driving test when he reapplies for his license. 

After concluding that Matilda, known as ‘Tilly’, and Harry both died as a result of a road traffic collision, Ms Lee said on Wednesday she would be issuing a Prevention of Future Death report – made by a coroner in an attempt to prevent future deaths from causes uncovered during an inquest – on the back of the case. 

She was urged by solicitor Patrick Maguire, representing Harry’s family, to consider contacting social media companies, after he referenced the videos showing Spencer’s dangerous driving.

Mr Maguire told the hearing that similar footage from other drivers existed online and suggested social media firms may have a ‘duty to take this material down’ as it ‘subconsciously validates and encourages others to copy that driving’. 

Ms Lee said: ‘It is showing off. The videos get likes and comments, which drives the requirement.’ 

The Seccombes, from Preston-on-Stour, Warwickshire, alongside Mr Maguire on behalf of the Purcell family, called for the government to introduce measures to ‘mitigate the risk’ that newly-qualified drivers pose to themselves, passengers and the public.

They said graduated driving licenses should be introduced which restricts the carrying of passengers that drivers can carry in the months after passing their test, while black boxes would ‘incentivise good driving’.

Department for Transport figures show that in 2023 around one fifth of all killed or seriously injured (KSI) casualties from collisions involving cars were in crashes involving a young driver, defined as between the ages of 17 to 24. 

Young male car drivers aged 17 to 24 are four times as likely to be killed or seriously injured compared with all car drivers aged 25 or over. 

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