Grieving parents invited son's killer to funeral before showing 'true colours'
A grieving mum and dad invited the driver who killed their son to his funeral - before he showed his "true colours" by "lying" about the crash.
Ben and Becky Paolucci said they spoke to Bradley Clough, 25, at their son Jack's wake - and even considered hugging him if he had told the truth. But the judge who sentenced Clough for causing death by careless driving said it was "less than attractive" that he lied to authorities about being blinded by oncoming lights when he crashed his Renault Clio into a tree with seven people inside.
Jack and fiancee Courtney Jennings, both serving soldiers, sadly died in the crash, while two other passengers were injured. Clough, a private in the Royal Fusiliers, was sent to prison earlier this month to serve a three-year jail term.
Jack's parents, from Stockland Green, Erdington, said they just wanted Mr Clough to show remorse for the killing, adding they've been left in the dark about exactly how Jack died more than two years after the tragic event.
Jack's parents said they just wanted Clough to show remorse for the killing (.facebook.com/courtney.jennings)Ben and Becky were woken in the early hours of Saturday, October 30, 2021, to the heartbreaking news that their son, a lance corporal with the 1st Battalion, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, had been killed, BirminghamLive reports.
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Becky said: "We had two policemen knock on our door, just after three in the morning. They told us Jack had died. We asked about Courtney as they were attached. One didn’t go anywhere without the other. They said Courtney had died too. You can’t grieve properly – we didn’t know what happened. We just wanted him (Clough) to show some sort of remorse. All we wanted was for him to just admit it.
“This is what’s been hard – just the lies. They tried to get him to be remorseful. He said he felt ‘shocked’.” Ben said: “Originally we had sympathy for the driver. If Jack had been driving, we know how bad he would have felt. Yes, we did invite him to the funeral but after that, he showed his true colours.”
Pictured: Bradley Clough at Winchester Crown Court (Solent News & Photo Agency)Clough's Clio, meant for five passengers, had seven inside, including 19-year-old Jack and Courtney, aged 18. It crashed near their army barracks in Tidworth, Wiltshire while Clough drove them to a Halloween party at a club in Andover, Hampshire, on October 29, 2021.
Clough lost control at a corner and hit a tree just before 10pm. No one in the back seat was wearing a seatbelt and the tyre was being slowly punctured by a screw, Winchester Crown Court heard. Two other passengers, Kallum Ryan and Jack Latus, were seriously injured.
Clough, from Bacup in Lancashire, was cleared of two counts of causing death by dangerous driving and another two of causing serious injury by dangerous driving following the crash - but admitted two counts of causing death by careless driving. He was jailed for three years.
Ben and Becky said they knew very little of what happened before the trial took place. They said they were still to be told their son’s cause of death and awaited a full death certificate more than two years on. But they both said the hardest part for them had been the alleged failure of Clough and some of the other passengers to tell them truthfully what had happened that night.
Ben and Becky said they only learned in court what injuries their Jack had sustained. Becky said: “We weren’t told of what he had died of. His injuries were part of the accident analysis. We were given an interim death certificate but the cause of death was undisclosed. We heard in court it was head and chest injuries.”
Without a full death certificate, Jack is still on the electoral roll which Ben and Becky still receive letters for. Becky said: “You can’t really grieve. You’ve got all these things you’re having to wait for before you can move on. As nurses, we know when he was pulled out of the car he had a pulse. But we don’t know what happened then. It was nice to know Jack had been singing."
She added: “We knew nothing at all. We saw the CCTV just before we went into court." They heard Mr Latus – also in the back of the car - had urged Clough to slow down and said: 'Brad, chill', just before the crash. Becky said: “You want to know what happened.
“They said Jack was singing in the back of the car. He had the most awful voice but it was nice to know he had been singing. The ones in the back had been knocked straight out. It was good that Jack Latus, out of all of them, actually told the truth. All we wanted was for him to just admit it."
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Passenger Andrew Hill told the court that an oncoming car had its lights on full beam and ‘blinded Clough as it came around the corner’. During the trial Clough then said: “I was mistaken. There was a bright light.”
CCTV evidence said there were no other cars in the area at the time of the crash. Ben and Becky were also angered by Clough posting photos of his new car within weeks of the accident, plus another photo of him ‘flexing’, posing, before the trial.
Ben continued: “Bradley texted us just before the funeral. He said ‘I don’t know what to say’. We invited him and his brother to the funeral. He seemed genuine. I spent the whole wake of the funeral speaking to them. If that was the person who continued in the whole process I don’t think it would have gone to court. It was not what he did but how he reacted to it.
“We all grew up and drove cars and did things we shouldn’t have done. People have asked ‘should Bradley have gone to jail?’ If he had said ‘I’m an idiot, I’m so sorry it happened’, I would have given him a hug. But he didn’t afford us that. They were a very close-knit group – Jack, Jack Latus, and Kallum Ryan. We have thousands of photos of them together with Courtney. Jack’s room was the main area where they met. Most of the ones in their group have left the army now. We thought these were his friends."
As part of his sentence, Clough was also banned from driving for three-and-a-half years and will be required to sit an extended driving test before he is allowed on the roads again.
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