A 17-year-old boy has admitted causing the deaths of three friends while driving a sports car at such speed it became airborne.
Arayeb Saqib will be sentenced on his 18th birthday after admitting killing his passengers Hamzaa Jacob Iqbal, 24, Hamza Gujjar, 21, and Munib Afzal Karim, 20, in a crash earlier this year. A fifth man in the Audi S5 involved was seriously injured.
Saqib had no licence and no insurance at the time of the accident in Whalley Range. He admitted three charges of causing death by dangerous driving, and one charge of causing serious injury by dangerous driving, at a Manchester Crown Court hearing last week.
The deaths of the three friends, who were returning from a family wedding at the time of the tragedy, prompted an outpouring of grief from the community, and their funerals drew hundreds of mourners.
Brendan O’Leary, who defended Saqib in the brief Manchester Crown Court plea hearing, asked for the case to be adjourned for a pre-sentence report, even though Saqib ‘faces an inevitable custodial sentence’.
Mr O’Leary applied for bail on Saqib’s behalf, saying: “It’s a sensitive case and a tragic case, but there have been no problems whilst he’s been on bail - he’s 17-years-of-age and it’s Ramadan.”
Judge Martin Steiger refused the application, saying: “In a case involving a triple homicide it would not be appropriate to grant bail, and so the defendant is remanded in custody.”
