Kane Farragher Gets 12 Years and Nine Months After Car Chase
Kane Farragher was jailed for 12 years and nine months after a car chase on the A19 near Sunderland ended in a head-on crash that killed Taylor Jenkins and badly injured another passenger. Newcastle Crown Court heard he admitted causing her death by dangerous driving after driving the wrong way down the road on 1 March.
Newcastle Crown Court Sentence
Judge Moreland told the court Farragher had “undertook a lengthy course of the most dangerous driving one can imagine” before the crash near the Nissan factory. The court also imposed a 13-and-a-half-year driving ban, adding to the prison term he received for the deadly pursuit.
The crash site was around seven miles from where the pursuit started and around one mile from where Farragher joined the A19. Farragher had been banned from driving for four years in 2023, and prosecutors said his BMW M135 triggered an automatic camera notification on Tyneside that it was a vehicle of interest to Police Scotland.
Felling Bypass Stop
Northumbria Police officers first tried to stop the car on the Felling bypass in Gateshead. Farragher drove into a coned-off section of the carriageway and sped away to avoid being boxed in, reaching speeds of up to 136mph before the pursuit was called off when he headed the wrong way down the A19.
After the crash, a blood sample showed Farragher was over the legal limits for cocaine, cannabis, ecstasy and ketamine. He later admitted causing death by dangerous driving, drug-driving offences, driving while disqualified and causing serious injury to his friend in the back seat.
Taylor Jenkins and the Taxi
Jenkins was 24 and from Edinburgh. She had been travelling with Farragher and friends to Newcastle for an event that night when their car collided with a taxi near Sunderland, killing her and badly injuring the back-seat passenger.
Sgt Dave Roberts described Farragher’s conduct in custody, saying he “even went as far as trying to shamelessly offer money to the officer detaining him, in a ridiculous attempt to get out of the situation.” Northumbria Police referred the case to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, which is investigating.
