Driver banned for four months after driving at 71mph on 30mph Northampton road where two pedestrians died

Police branded a driver “reckless and dangerous” after he admitted speeding at more than twice the speed limit in Northampton town centre — yards away from where two pedestrians died last year.

Cameras clocked Jack Godden, 32, driving a silver Audi SUV at an eye-popping 71mph in Broad Street two weeks before Christmas 2021.

Six weeks earlier a pedestrian died after a collision with a car on the same stretch of the A508 between Lady’s Lane and Campbell Street.

In May 2021, a 39-year-old woman and her unborn child died in a collision with a Nissan Pathfinder a few hundred yards away.

Godden, of of Packwood Close in Daventry, pleaded guilty to speeding at Wellingborough Magistrates’ Court on Friday (September 30) and was banned for four months, fined £692 and ordered to pay £159 in prosecution costs and a surcharge to fund victim services.

Northamptonshire Police Safer Roads Operations Manager, Matt O’Connell, said: “Speeding kills – it is as simple as that. So driving at more than twice the speed restriction in a residential street is just dangerous and reckless.

“It is hard to understand why so many people continue to put their own life and the lives of others at risk by speeding when the consequences of getting it wrong are so extreme. Driving just a few miles per hour can be the difference between life and death.

“Reducing the number of people killed or seriously injured on our roads remains the priority for Northamptonshire Police and our partners at the Northamptonshire Safer Roads Alliance, and I’m pleased the courts have dealt with the driver positively.”

Speeding is one of the so-called ‘fatal five’ offences — alongside drink and drug-driving, not wearing a seatbelt, distractions such as using a phone at the wheel and careless or inconsiderate driving — which are most commonly linked to deaths and serious injuries on roads.

Last year, 29 people were killed and a further 280 seriously injured on the county’s road network.

Karl Peter Chambers, 56, died following a collision involving a black Ford KA while crossing Broad Street to get to his home in the Spring Boroughs neighbourhood November 3, 2021.

Pregnant mum-of-four Dulce Lina Mendes Pereira, aged 39, also died after a collision with a Nissan Pathfinder at the junction of Greyfriars and Horsemarket in May.

James Craigie, aged 31, of Newport Pagnell Road in Wootton, pleaded guilty to causing Ms Pereira’s death by dangerous driving at Northampton Crown Court and is due to be sentenced next month.

It has not been revealed if speed was a contributing factor in either incident.

Northamptonshire Police also has a fleet of mobile enforcement vans which visit around 170 locations county-wide using cameras to monitor drivers’ speed and also spotting other traffic offences such as not wearing seatbelts.

Mr O’Connell added: “Even just a few miles per hour over the speed limit can have extreme consequences, leaving families devastated by losing loved ones.”