Britain’s first Muslim peer faces charges over text message he sent shortly before fatal car crash

    Labour peer Lord Ahmed could face charges over a text message allegedly sent from his mobile phone shortly before a motorway crash in which a 28-year-old man died. He was driving his gold Jaguar X-type on the M1 on Christmas Day when he smashed into a car which had spun out of control and had come to rest in the fast lane facing the wrong way. The 50-year-old peer was badly shaken and suffered “cuts and bruises” in the accident in which his wife Sakina, 49, and his mother, who is in her mid-80s, also suffered minor injuries. Martyn Gombar, the Slovakian driver of the other car, was killed instantly. A routine police investigation into the death crash has focused on the use of his mobile phone in the minutes before Lord Ahmed used it to call the emergency services. A text was allegedly sent to a journalist friend during this period and police have been trying to establish the circumstances in which it was sent and by whom. Motorists who send texts at the wheel face being charged with causing death by dangerous driving if using the mobile is believed to have played a part in an accident in which someone is killed. The maximum sentence is 14 years. But yesterday Lord Ahmed denied committing such an offence. He said: “I would strenuously deny any allegation of death by dangerous driving, other than that I cannot comment.” South Yorkshire Police has prepared a file on the case which will shortly be sent to the Crown Prosecution Service to consider. Chris Brooke reports.

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