Drink driver responsible for students’ deaths loses appeal

A drink driver who caused two promising students’ deaths when he crashed a BMW after a night at a club has had his pleas for a lighter sentence thrown out by top judges.

Aloice Mburu, 24, was jailed for eight years in March after he admitted two counts of causing death by dangerous driving and one of driving without insurance.

Lawyers for Mburu, of Maplestead Road, Dagenham, told the Court of Appeal on Friday that the jail term was too long considering he was an inexperienced driver with no history of motoring convictions.

But three senior judges rejected the appeal, saying the families of girls who died in the crash would “never recover from their loss”.

Judge Peter Jacobs told the court the crash happened in the early hours of July 25, 2009, after Mburu and a friend had spent a night drinking in an east London nightclub.

Despite being more than twice the legal limit, Mburu offered students, Tabitha Njenga and Perpetual Muchemi, a lift home to Thornton Heath, South London.

But, soon afterwards, witnesses saw the BMW speeding down Forest Lane, Stratford.

All four of the car’s wheels left the ground after it went over a raised pedestrian crossing at speed and, when it landed, Mburu lost control and crashed into a house.

Cambridge student Miss Njenga, 19, and Miss Muchemi, 21, from Croydon, both died at the scene from multiple injuries.

Mburu, who is originally from Kenya, was taken to hospital with a partially collapsed lung. A blood test taken more than two hours after the crash showed he was two and half times the legal alcohol limit.

Judge Jacobs, sitting with Lord Justice Aikens and Mr Justice Openshaw, said: “The effect on the deceaseds’ families was devastating. They were intelligent young ladies with promising futures; their families will never recover from their loss.”