A speeding teenager who caused the death of three fellow sixth formers and left three others seriously injured in a car crash just weeks after passing his test has been sentenced to 24 months detention in a young offenders’ institution.
Edward Spencer was sentenced exactly two years and a week his Ford Fiesta collided with an oncoming Fiat at 64mph, killing his passengers Matilda Seccombe, known as Tilly, 16, Harry Purcell, a 17-year-old twin, and Frank Wormald, 16.
Spencer, the 19-year-old son of a farmer, previously admitted three counts of causing death by careless driving.
Today, at Warwick Crown Court, Spencer was handed a 24-month sentence to be spent in a young offenders’ institution. He was also given an eight-year driving ban and ordered to take an extended driving test when he applies for his licence back.
Spencer, who had been noticeably red in the face throughout the hearing, stood staring at the judge as the sentence was delivered.
He had passed his driving test just five weeks before the collision on the B4035 between Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire and Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire, but had already garnered a reputation amongst his peers for dangerous driving.
Spencer and the three dead were all sixth form students at Chipping Campden School, an Ofsted-rated ‘outstanding’ former grammar which was founded almost 600 years ago.
Frank was only in the car because he was going home with Harry to watch a football match on TV, sources revealed to MailOnline.
Edward Spencer, 19, pictured here outside Warwick Crown Court at a previous appearance, pleaded guilty to killing three of his friends in the collision in April 2023
Matilda Seccombe, known as Tilly, had only been travelling to and from school in Spencer’s car for around a week prior to the crash
Harry Purcell, 17, was in the Ford Fiesta when Spencer crashed in April 2023
Frank Wormald, 16, was planning to watch a football match that evening with friend Harry Purcell
Outside court, the driver of the second vehicle, a woman who was driving her two stepchildren, told how she urged the children to close their eyes as she realised Spencer’s out-of-control Ford Fiesta was going to collide with them.
She told MailOnline: ‘The only thing I could do – because I knew in that moment that my children were going to die – the only thing I could do to help them was to tell them to close their eyes’.
The stepmother, who cannot be identified to protect the identity of the children who survived the crash, said she was knocked unconscious and came around to find the children, aged ten and 12 at the time, screaming in the back seat.
All three were hospitalised after the collision at Stretton-on-Fosse, Warwickshire, which saw four air ambulances attend the scene.
Spencer admitted three counts of causing serious injury by careless driving in relation to those victims.
The stepmother joined Harry and Tilly’s mothers in condemning ‘cocky’ Spencer – who only pleaded guilty to the offences on what was due to be the first day of his trial last month – for his failure to take responsibility sooner and a lack of remorse, both of which had deepened their agony.
And they urged the Government to do more to reduce the number of serious and fatal collisions involving young drivers.
Prosecutor Timothy Harrington said Spencer had a ‘history of bad driving, of showing off, taking risks, driving too quickly and failing to heed the warnings of those in the car with him.’
Warwick Crown Court heard Frank was sitting in the front seat of Spencer’s car, with Harry and Tilly in the rear seats. All three suffered traumatic head injuries.
Mr Harrington said the Fiesta collided with the oncoming Fiat after Spencer’s car left the road and hit the verge before ‘spinning out of control’.
Edward Spencer, a keen rugby player, lost control of his Ford Fiesta while taking fellow sixth formers home from school
The Fiat went through a hedge after being hit by Spencer’s Ford Fiesta
Spencer had promised Tilly’s father that he would drive carefully while ferrying her to or from school
The prosecutor added: ‘He then took his foot off the accelerator, which caused the car to understeer and he lost control. The car then went into the opposite carriageway. ‘
An expert estimated Spencer was travelling at 64mph at the time on the road, which has a 60mph limit.
Mr Harrington added: ‘Whatever the speed, he was travelling too quickly for his driving capability and the road.’
The judge later pointed out that the road also had a sign warning of a sharp bend, chevrons on the road and the word ‘slow’ painted on the surface, but said Spencer had ’caused carnage’.
A court heard that in the lead-up to the crash, Spencer’s car had been caught on CCTV ‘plainly speeding’ at an estimated 57mph on a 40mph stretch around three-and-a-half miles along the road.
The court heard the families of the victims uncovered evidence of Spencer’s sub-standard driving on social media – and also of his apparent lack of remorse.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, Juliet Seccombe, the mother of Tilly, told how she managed to gain access to her daughter’s Snapchat account while looking for photographs, which led her to begin questioning the manner of Spencer’s driving.
Mrs Seccombe added: ‘Eventually, my friend told me Ed was posting without remorse or empathy towards the families of the victims on social media.
Juliet Seccombe, whose daughter Tilly Secombe, 16, was killed in the crash
Toni Purcell, mother of Harry Purcell, 17, who was also killed in the crash
‘Things like: ‘I’m back!’ and ‘It was not my fault – I’m a careful driver’.
She continued: ‘We have since learned that tilly had messaged him to challenge him about his dangerous driving, to which his reply was: ‘You underestimate me.’
Mrs Seccombe said his reply was ‘a clear reflection of his ego and something I will not be able to unsee.’ She added: ‘It will haunt me until the day I die.’
She accused Spencer of being ‘arrogant’ and said she found it ‘astonishing’ and ‘callous’ that Spencer took a job at a timber yard just a ‘few hundred yards’ from the family’s home, a decision which has now left her anxious when coming and going from home.
MailOnline has previously told how Spencer, from Newbold on Stour, Warwickshire, had promised Tilly’s father, James, a Parish councillor in their neighbouring village of Preston on Stour, that he would be ‘careful’ behind the wheel.
Tilly had also raised concerns about the manner of his driving just hours before the fatal collision, her father revealed.
She had only been travelling to and from school with Spencer for around a week before he lost control of his Ford Fiesta on a bend.
Spencer voluntarily gave up his driving licence following the crash, but successfully reapplied to the DVLA for it last year. He is now said to be working at a sawmill on the edge of Preston on Stour, where Tilly’s family still live.
Harry had a twin brother and was a keen Chelsea FC fan who wanted to move to London when he was older, his mother said
Mr Seccombe, 55, said it was ‘sickening’ to think that Spencer had possibly been driving himself to work at a timber yard which was ‘virtually within sight of Tilly’s bedroom window’.
They families of two of the victims – together with the driver of the other car – are now calling for the introduction of graduated driving licences.
These could include restrictions such as a ban on new drivers carrying younger passengers, a late-night driving curfew for the first few months after passing a driving test, or other measures such as a minimum learning period.
According to statistics from the Department for Transport, in 2023 around a fifth of all killed or seriously injured (KSI) casualties from collisions involving cars were in collisions which involved a young car driver, defined as someone between the ages of 17 to 24.
Young male car drivers aged 17 to 24 are four times as likely to be killed or seriously injured compared with all car drivers aged 25 or over.
An analysis of statistics between 2019 and 2023 shows that almost half (48 per cent) of KSI casualties occurred on rural roads, compared to 42 per cent of casualties caught up in collisions involving drivers from other age groups.
And as with the Stretton-on-Fosse incident, more than half (53 per cent) of KSI casualties in younger driver collisions occurred away from a junction. The figure for other driver age groups was 47 per cent over the same five-year period.
But while a longer-term look at the statistics shows that since 2004, KSI casualties from a collision involving at least one younger car driver fell by 60 per cent, from 12,257 to 4,959, between 2002 and 2003 the figures rose, albeit by only 0.6 per cent.
A police notice at the scene of the fatal crash between Chipping Campden and Shipston-on- Stour
Detective Chief Superintendent Anna Middleton, of Warwickshire Police, said Spencer had been driving too fast for the conditions.
She added: ‘He was an inexperienced driver and undoubtedly his inexperience had an impact on what happened that day. He took the bend too quickly and as a result of the collision three young people lost their lives.
‘My understanding is he has not shown any remorse or apologised throughout the investigation. He had a number of opportunities to plead guilty throughout the court process but he chose the first day of his trial to plead guilty.
‘It was in his gift to plead to this at an earlier stage if he wanted to which would have spared the families (of the victims and injured) further pain.’
She added: ‘This is one of the most harrowing incidents we have dealt with in a long time. From emergency services who responded, all the way through to the investigation team, this has been a really difficult incident for them to deal with.
‘A lot of them have children of their own and of a similar age to those affected….undoubtedly they will be affected by this for a long period of time.’
Unfortunately incidents like this are not unique and if there’s one message I would like to get across to young drivers it is to note what has happened here: lives torn apart by the actions of an inexperienced driver. Ultimately this was an entirely avoidable and preventable incident, so if there’s one outcome I would like to see come out of this, I would hope young drivers will consider their behaviours behind the wheel.’
Philip Seccombe, the Warwickshire Police and Crime Commissioner, whose second cousin, James, is Tilly’s father, is campaigning for GDLs to be introduced.
Mr Seccombe, the joint lead on roads policing for the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, said graduated licences would ‘protect, rather than penalise’ young drivers and had worked well in other countries such as Canada and Australia.
He said: ‘Sadly we lose too many young drivers to road collisions and I will be working with organisations such as Forget Me Not Families, the AA, RAC and others to build a case to take to the Department for Transport.’
He said that while Tilly’s parents had suffered a ‘devastating’ loss, they ‘do not want this to happen to anyone else.’
Two months before the collision caused by Spencer, a lorry driver died in a collision with a school bus heading to Chipping Campden School on the same stretch of the B4035 between the north Cotswolds town and Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire.
