A grieving father has stormed out of court after shouting at the judge.
Father storms out of court after his daughter’s killer walks free. The emotive action happened as the speeding driver who killed his daughter did not receive a custodial sentence.
Ola Onubogu, 53, was rushing home from work when he hit 11-year-old Isabelle Boshell in Coventry last October.
He was driving at 47mph in a 30mph zone. She was rushed to hospital but sadly died four days later. Onubogu admitted to causing death by dangerous driving last month and was warned at the time he faced a jail sentence.
However, at Warwick Crown Court he was handed a six-month suspended sentence, 120 hours of unpaid work and a 15-month driving ban instead.
As he was sentenced Isabelle’s father, Matthew Boshell, stood up and shouted at the judge “This is a shit show” before storming from the court.
In a statement read out in court Matthew told how he watched his daughter’s “lips turn blue and her hands go cold” after her life support machine was turned off.
Speaking to 53-year-old Onubogu Judge Anthony Potter said “There is nothing you can do and nothing I can do that can possibly take away the pain Isabelle’s family suffer and will continue to suffer for the rest of their lives.
You accept you were traveling at greater than the speed limit and at a stage where you approached where Isabelle was walking there is a pedestrian crossing and ‘slow’ painted on the surface.
She came from the right side, running between traffic behind a van, and because of your speed you were unable to stop.” He went on to say “It is impossible to imagine what goes through a parent’s mind when they are faced with the decision on whether they should allow life support to be withdrawn – and they had to make that decision.
There are no words that could possibly express the loss the Boshell family has suffered. Had you obeyed the speed limit on that road, no matter how unpredictable Isabelle’s actions might have been, you would have been able to avoid that accident.”
Prosecutor Graham Russell said police crash investigators confirmed that had he been travelling at 30mph he would have had time to brake. Before leaving court Mr Boshell read a statement saying “Every day I wake up and have to come to the realisation that Isabelle is no longer with us.
The pain left behind is like nothing I have ever felt. It is with me every second I am awake. When they turned the machine off we watched her lips turn blue and her hands go cold.
Walking out of the room was the hardest thing I have ever had to do.” Mr Onubogu said in a statement “I have children of my own and cannot believe my actions have placed the family of another child in such pain.”
Ruth Zentler-Munro, defending, said “He is devastated by the consequences of his actions.”