by Keith Hunt

An illegal immigrant who was making a phone call when he crashed into a stationary car on a motorway has been found guilty of killing a teenager.

Zahid Masood was convicted of causing Charlotte Smoker's death by dangerous drving at Maidstone Crown Court today.

He was jailed for a total of four years nine months - four years for causing death by dangerous driving and nine months consecutive for perverting the course of justice. He was also banned from driving for seven years.

The court had earlier heard Charlotte Smoker’s Fiat Cinquecento had earlier hit the barrier of the central reservation and was jutting out into the fast lane.

Other traffic managed to brake and swerve around the car before Masood, who only had a provisional driving licence to drive in this country, smashed into it in his Ford Focus.

Masood, of Heron Way, Lower Stoke, denied causing death by dangerous driving.

Prosecutor Allister Walker said Masood, now 47, was a Pakistani national at the time calling himself Ahmed Mukhtar.

“In fact, the defendant was an illegal entrant into the United Kingdom,” he said. “After the collision he left the United Kingdom.

“He told police he returned after marrying his Romanian partner in 2007. He returned as Zahid Masood, his true identity.”

He was arrested in November last year.

Maidstone Crown Court, where Masood's case is being heard

Miss Smoker, a 19-year-old air hostess, from Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire, was driving from Guildford, Surrey, to Stansted on the M25 in the early afternoon of November 3 2003 when she hit the barrier of the central reservation near junction four at Shoreham.

She died from head injuries after the Ford Focus struck her car.

Masood said he came to the UK in 1999 with false particulars as Mukhtar Ahmed and later ran a business called Universal Workforce with Herjinder Singh.

He said he enrolled at London University to change his status from visitor to student. “I applied to the Home Office in the name Mukhtar Ahmed but had received no confirmation by 2003,” he said.

"you will appreciate the devastating consequences of your actions on this particular day" – judge philip statman

He lived with his partner Marinela. The Ford Focus was registered to the company and he only had a provisional licence.

Addressing Masood, Judge Philip Statman said: “You had no right to be on the motorway unsupervised as inevitably you were.”

“You will appreciate the devastating consequences of your actions on this particular day.

“You committed what I consider to be an extremely serious offence of perverting the course of justice. You made absolutely no effort on your return to the United Kingdom to surrender to the authorities.

“You probably thought you had got away with it.”

Masood had pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice by giving false information about his identity and then leaving the UK to avoid prosecution.

The jury was out for just 40 minutes before reaching a guilty verdict.

The victim’s parents and grandfather sat in court as Judge Philip Statman said their statements were “moving and eloquent”.

Charlotte, said the judge, had done all she could to manoeuvre her car to get off the carriageway and out of danger.

The judge said he had to sentence Masood according to the maximum sentence of 10 years in 2003 for causing death by dangerous driving. It had since been increased to 14 years.