A DRUNK barmaid killed a pal in a horror crash after piling seven people into her car on the way to a house party, a court heard.
Karla Dodds was “well over” the drink-drive limit when she said she would take six friends in her Hyundai i10, it is said.
Karla Dodds killed a passenger in a horror crash, jurors heard[/caption]
Truman Hub, pictured with his girlfriend Lauren, died when the car flipped[/caption]
Jurors heard four of the passengers crammed into the back seat and one reluctantly climbed into the boot of the hatchback.
Truman Hub was hanging his head out of the rear passenger window when Dodds lost control and hit a lamppost, Chronicle Live reports.
The 22-year-old was killed when the Hyundai flipped during the horror in North Tyneside in November 2022.
Newcastle Crown Court heard Dodds, 25, has pleaded guilty to causing death by careless driving while over the drink-drive limit but denies causing death by dangerous driving.
Andrew Espley, prosecuting, said: “The prosecution case is that Karla Dodds caused the death of Truman Hub by driving dangerously in the early hours of the morning on Sunday November 20 2022.
“In brief, Karla Dodds had been out at work the previous day, the Saturday night, as a barmaid in a local pub.
“She then went out drinking in Whitley Bay from 11.30pm, driving her car from home to the pub.”
“After spending a couple of hours in the Havana nightclub, in Whitley Bay, she picked up six other people to take them to a house party in Shiremoor. By then she was well over the legal limit for alcohol for driving.”
Jurors heard Truman, who had got in the car with his girlfriend Lauren, was hanging out the car as it approached a roundabout.
Dodds was allegedly driving “too fast in the circumstances” before she ploughed into the lamppost.
The car flipped on to its passenger side and crushed Truman before coming to a stop on the driver’s side.
Mr Espley said Truman likely would not have died if he was not hanging out the window.
But he told jurors 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 court was told the passenger who got in the boot of the car felt a bump then “everything seemed to spin or rotate” and he banged his head.
Another passenger said Dodds claimed she was “ok to drive” but was going too fast despite being told to slow down.
After the crash, they told how they regained consciousness to find Dodds shouting “we’ve got to go, we’ve got to go” before she fled.
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.”
Truman’s girlfriend Lauren said the music was “really loud” before the crash and that people were singing along.
She told how Truman put his head out the window but she grabbed him and told him to “stop acting like an idiot and get your head back in”.
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“.
She denies causing death by dangerous driving.
The trial continues.
The barmaid crammed seven people into the small hatchback[/caption]
She denies causing death by dangerous driving[/caption]
