A young woman who was FaceTiming her best friend when she died in a 100mph horror crash has spoken of the trauma of reliving her tragic death.
Ebony Neville, 21, was videocalling her pal Stephanie Nye-Diroyan on October 23, 2022 when she heard her scream and the call abruptly cut out, The Sun reported.
Little did Ebony know that the car Stephanie had been travelling in, driven by colleague Ivan Zaliac, 24, had collided with a 26-tonne truck.
Dash-cam footage of the crash showed Zailac’s powerful BMW 340D hitting the lorry at nearly 100mph – well over double the speed limit.
The crash happened on Mollison Avenue in Brimsdown, a neighbourhood of Enfield, north London at 7.54pm.
‘Seconds before the phone cut out you could hear the engine revving and Stephanie’s scream – then it froze on her face,’ Ebony told the newspaper.
Following the crash she repeatedly tried to call Stephanie and Ivan’s personal mobiles but both went straight to voicemail.
After ringing the police and discovering there had been a ‘bad crash’ in Brimsdown, Ebony and began driving around, eventually stumbling across the site of the collision.
Stephanie Nye-Diroyan, 21, was pronounced dead at the scene just under two hours after the collision in Enfield, north London
Crash victim Stephanie Nye-Diroyan (right) with her friend and work colleague Ebony Neville
Finding the road blocked off, Ebony drove to The Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel where paramedics had taken Stephanie.
The pair originally met after Stephanie hired Ebony at the second-hand car dealership Big Motoring World.
However the duo quickly forged a firm friendship and in the weeks prior to the crash had spent time socialising together in Nottingham and Manchester.
Ebony was ill on the day of the crash and so Stephanie was on her way to visit her at home when Zailac lost control of the vehicle.
A tantalising screenshot from the FaceTime call, taken only a few minutes before the fatal crash, was shown in court.
Zailac suffers from amnesia and doesn’t remember the details of what happened after suffering a brain injury in the collision, leading to subsequent psychiatric issues.
He sat at the back of court between his parents laying on his mother or father’s shoulder and had to be lifted up by them to stand when the judge came into court.
The car sales executive was ruled unfit to stand trial last month, leaving the jury to formally decide whether he did cause Ms Nye-Diroyan’s death by dangerous driving.
Dash-cam footage of the crash showed 24-year-old Ivan Zailac’s (pictured) powerful BMW 340D colliding with the lorry at well over double the speed limit
The jury then found he did carry out the act. Judge Sarah Munro, KC, said at the trial that Zailac will be supervised by a nominated social worker and the Hillingdon mental health team for two years.
Prosecutor Frederick Hookway told the court that the Crown intends to put Zailac on trial if he recovers.
‘The objective of this order is for the improvement of the defendant’s mental health not only for his own sake but for the future of these proceedings,’ he said.
‘The crown do intend to reinstitute these proceedings when and if appropriate.’
Stephanie’s mother Nicholle Diroyan sobbed as she read her victim impact statement in court.
She said: ‘Stephanie was my only child. The pain of losing her is immeasurable and every day without her feels incomplete.
A reconstruction during the trial showed the car was travelling at 98mph when it slid across the road at a blind corner in wet conditions and killed Stephanie.
Prosecutor Hookway said: ‘It is alleged that this defendant drove a BMW, an M340D, at approximately 98mph on Mollison Avenue, an A-road in north London that has a speed limit of 40mph.
A reconstruction showed the car was travelling at 98mph when it slid across the road at a blind corner in wet conditions and killed Stephanie Nye-Diroyan (pictured)
‘And it is alleged that due to the speed and manner of his driving he lost control of that vehicle, causing it to crash into an oncoming lorry that was driving in the opposite direction.
‘Stephanie Nye-Diyoran at the time was in the front passenger seat.
‘She was caused death by serious injury due to the collision between the vehicle and the lorry, and despite the attention and efforts of emergency services, she was tragically pronounced dead the scene.’
Ebony, who now lives in Manchester, has set up a Change.org petition to demand justice for Stephanie after Zailac was allowed to walk free from court last month after being unfit to stand trial.
In the petition, she wrote: ‘Her life was stolen in a violent crash she had no control over. She wasn’t driving. She wasn’t reckless. She was simply a passenger, trusting someone else behind the wheel.
‘Stephanie was full of life—kind, vibrant, generous, and deeply loved. Her laughter could light up even the darkest day. She gave everything to the people she cared about.
‘Her absence has left a deep and lasting pain for her mum Nicole, her loving grandmother, her aunties and uncles, cousins, and her friends—people who will never stop fighting for her.
‘That night, the man behind the wheel—Ivan—chose to drive at deadly speeds, reaching 100mph before crashing into a lorry.
Mollison Avenue in Brimsdown, a neighbourhood of Enfield, north London, where the crash took place
‘His actions weren’t just careless—they were criminal.
‘And above all, Ivan still has not had his licence taken off of him.. HOW?
‘This isn’t just a heartbreaking loss. It’s a failure of the justice system if he is allowed to walk free.’
In court, Mr Hookway said lorry driver Andre Allen had one passenger with him.
‘Their route started at a depot in Enfield, the destination was Covent Garden. The route took them southbound along Mollison Avenue. The road has a single carriageway in each direction and a speed limit of 40mph.
‘The incident itself happened on a corner of that road. The lorry driver, he described it as a blind corner where you are unable to see what is coming in the other direction due to an incline in the road and change in direction.
‘He also remembered that the conditions that night were dark and wet.
‘As he came around the corner in the lorry, he saw a grey car coming in the other direction – it was coming at some speed and initially it was in the correct lane for oncoming traffic, but as it came around the corner Mr Allen watched it slide, as he described it, into his lane.
‘It continued to slide until it collided with the front of his lorry, the point of collision being towards the driver’s side of the HGV.
‘Mr Allen thought he was driving at around 20-25mph, so well within the speed limit, and he had braked his lorry when he first saw this car.
‘Based on data from the airbag module in the defendant’s BMW, the collision happened at 19.54pm, so six minutes to eight in the evening.’
The prosecutor said using a combination of dash-cam footage, data recorded by the airbag module and witness evidence, a collision investigator had put together a reconstruction.
The BMW ‘had partly and then wholly crossed the white lines in the middle of the road,’ said Mr Hookway.
Jurors heard Zailac was driving at ’98mph before the collision, representing something well over double the applicable speed limit for that road.’
Following the crash Ms Nye-Diroyan was initially able to respond to the lorry driver by ‘nodding her head’, Mr Hookway said.
But her condition deteriorated and despite the best efforts of doctors at the scene, resuscitation efforts failed she was pronounced dead at 9.46pm.
Zailac was taken to the emergency department at Royal London Hospital.
Mr Hookway told jurors: ‘We will invite you to conclude that this (crash) is obviously from the reckless speed at which the vehicle was being driven, a speed wholly unsuitable for the road and the prevailing conditions.
‘The effect of that driving was the lost of control of the BMW, causing it to collide with Mr Allen’s lorry, which had the catastrophic effect of causing the death of Stephanie.’
