A woman who killed her friend in a 143mph Lamborghini crash and tried to blame him has been jailed for 10 years after trying to skip her sentencing hearing.
Humaira Batool, 26, was driving a rented £220,000 supercar when she lost control on a motorway in West Yorkshire, smashed through a barrier at ‘eye-watering speeds’ and overturned.
The Lamborghini burst into flames, leaving her passenger, 20-year-old Mohammed Shaan Hussain, trapped inside.
Batool, of Bradford, escaped with serious injuries, only because the fire melted her seatbelt and allowed her to climb out, but her friend, known as Shaan, died following the crash.
She first claimed she had been asleep in the passenger seat before CCTV proved it to be untrue. She then tried to blame Hussain for the collision, claiming he had tampered with the vehicle’s controls and caused it to accelerate.
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An expert testified that this claim would have been impossible and a jury found her guilty of causing death by dangerous driving in September.
When the time came for sentencing at Leeds Crown Court on Monday, Batool failed to turn up.
Her barrister said she had suffered a flare-up of endometriosis and gone to A&E.
Prosecutor Christopher Dunn wasn’t convinced, calling her absence ‘clearly a ruse’ to avoid sentencing and accusing her of making repeated attempts to ‘thwart the prosecution’.
Judge Ray Singh agreed she was ‘avoiding being dealt with’ and issued a warrant for her arrest. Police subsequently collected Batool from Bradford Royal Infirmary and brought her to court.
She spent the night in custody before appearing for sentencing on Tuesday, November 3, entering the dock on crutches and wearing a winter coat.
She reportedly showed no emotion as the judge handed down a 10-year prison sentence.
The crash happened on the M62 near Ripponden at around 4.20am on December 21, 2022. Shaan had arrived at Batool’s home in Bradford driving the hired Lamborghini Urus, but the pair swapped seats a short distance away.
Despite the pitch black and wet conditions, Batool reached speeds of up to 143mph. The Lamborghini struck a barrier, flipped over and caught fire.
Other motorists who had been overtaken by the supercar stopped to help, but Shaan remained trapped in the wreckage. Batool was found on a grass verge nearby, having suffered burns to around ten per cent of her body and a shattered tibia.
She initially told police she had been asleep in the passenger seat when the crash happened. That account fell apart when investigators produced CCTV footage showing her swapping places with Shaan before the collision.
Batool then claimed her friend had reached across and interfered with the Lamborghini’s controls, causing it to ‘boost’ to extraordinary speeds. An expert from the manufacturer said the car couldn’t have reached those speeds without the driver pressing the accelerator.
The defense also raised the possibilities of mechanical failure and aquaplaning. None of those explanations convinced the jury, with prosecutors saying Batool had been ‘entirely in control throughout’.
Judge Singh said she had got behind the wheel ‘with the clear intention of driving at extraordinary speeds’. He added: ‘You needed no encouragement to take up that challenge.’
Her dangerous driving had continued for miles, putting Shaan and other road users at obvious risk. ‘The sole cause of this collision was the manner of your driving,’ the judge told her.
He described Shaan’s death as ‘tragic and entirely avoidable’, explaining that the 20-year-old had survived the initial impact before becoming trapped in the burning vehicle.
‘That is a truly dreadful way for any human being to die,’ he said.
The judge was particularly critical of Batool’s attempts to pin the blame on her friend, who was no longer able to defend himself. ‘Those were deliberate falsehoods advanced at the expense of a deceased man who was unable to respond.’
Shaan’s mother, Nasreen Akhtar, said that Batool’s attempts to make her son ‘seem responsible for his own death’ had ‘prolonged our agony a thousand times’.
The family, she said, had been forced to defend his name while grieving his death.
‘Instead of being allowed to mourn our son, we had to listen to others tarnish his name,’ she told the court. ‘No parent should have to fight for the honour of their child.’
She described Shaan as ‘kind’ and ‘careful’, adding: ‘He was loved beyond measure and he was our hope for a better tomorrow.’
Batool’s barrister, Richard Dawson, said that she had suffered significant injuries in the crash, worsening existing mental health difficulties and the incident had left her with flashbacks, panic attacks and anxiety. He said she was ‘clearly and profoundly distressed’ by the death of her friend.
‘She cannot bear that she is responsible for the death of another person, let alone a close friend,’ he told the court.
Batool had previously lost her driving license following a conviction for driving without insurance, although she later passed another test.
She has now also been banned from driving for five years upon release and will have to pass an extended test before she’s allowed behind the wheel again.