Daily Mail
April 17, 2015
A ‘unique and beautiful’ teenage girl was killed by a driver who crashed a stolen car while drunk and high on cocaine and cannabis.
Xana Doyle, 19, was a passenger in the Toyota Avensis, which flipped and landed on its roof in an accident in the early hours of the morning.
Driver Sakhawat Ali, 23, was more than twice the drink-drive limit and had been taking class A and B drugs before getting behind the wheel.
A court heard he was driving at ‘excessive speed’ in the moments before the crash, which did not involve any other vehicle.
Miss Doyle, who suffered a ‘blunt head injury’, was pronounced dead at the scene in Newport, South Wales.
Ali admitted causing death by dangerous driving and aggravated vehicle taking when he appeared at Cardiff Crown Court yesterday.
Judge Neil Bidder QC told the court: ‘The driver was well over twice the drink-drive limit and it is accepted there was excessive speed.’
The judge said he wanted more information on how much cocaine and cannabis the driver had taken on the night of the smash before sentencing.
Ali, of Newport, was remanded in custody ahead of a hearing in July.
The driver’s cousin, Shabaz Ali, 21, admitted allowing himself to be carried in a stolen car following the smash in January this year. The July hearing will decide whether he ‘contributed’ to the accident by pulling the handbrake from the back seat.
Floral tributes were left at the scene of the accident and hundreds of people attended the funeral of Miss Doyle, a former Duffryn High School student, in January. In a tribute, her mother Emma O’Donoghue wrote that Xana was an ‘unusual name for a unique and beautiful girl’.