This is the moment a pickup truck which has just killed a four-year-old boy in an alleged high speed hit-and-run stops so its registration plate can be removed.
With Owen Maughan at the wheel of the Ford Ranger Wildtrak as it pulls up on a mini roundabout in Longfield shortly after 9.30pm on June 1 last year, his father Patrick Maughan can be seen to exit from his passenger seat, walk to the front of the damaged vehicle and pull off the number.
Just five minutes earlier, the vehicle had deliberately rammed a similar Wildtrak in which little Peter Maughan had been travelling with his one-year-old sister Annarica and their parents, Hayley Maughan and Lovell Mahon.
The impact, on New Barn Road in Southfleet, caused the family vehicle to spin out of control and roll up to three times before coming to a halt, upright and at a right angle with its bonnet into a hedge.
Peter, who had been sitting in the rear, was thrown from the Ranger and, having suffered severe and devastating injuries to his head, chest and abdomen, was pronounced dead at hospital around half-an-hour later.
While the youngster’s mum and sister escaped with minor injuries, his dad, then aged 24, sustained multiple fractures and brain trauma, leaving him unlikely to walk again.
But Maidstone Crown Court has heard that instead of stopping at the scene to assist, 27-year-old Owen and Patrick, 54, drove off – with sparks coming from one of the children’s pushchairs that became jammed under their chassis after falling from the back of Mr Mahon’s Ford Ranger in the collision.
When the vehicle was found by police two days later having been abandoned in a residential street in Hextable, the buggy was still wedged underneath.
CCTV footage of their getaway gathered as part of the criminal investigation has been shown this week at the father and son’s trial for murdering Peter.
The court has heard that the little boy’s mum is Owen Maughan’s cousin and Patrick Maughan her uncle by marriage, having wed her father’s sister.
Although a week or so prior to the alleged murder bid Hayley Maughan had had a disagreement with Owen Maughan’s sister, Nicole, at a school, the two families were said to have not spoken “for years”.
At the start of the case against father and son, prosecutor Richard Jory KC told jurors that although the reasons “weren’t and aren’t clear”, by the time of the fatal collision the defendants were “in a fury”.
The two vehicles had come together “by chance”, with a chase unfolding on the A2 London-bound from the area of Shorne to the Pepperhill at Northfleet.
At that junction, they pulled up side by side at the end of the slip road and exchanged angry words, with Lovell Mahon telling the pair “children are in the motor” and offering to have a fight at a later time.
Having then turned to head up New Barn Road in the direction of the family road in Brakefield Road just over a mile away, Owen and Patrick Maughan followed and, about 15 seconds later and having pulled onto the wrong side of the road, they rammed the Wildtrak at an estimated 60mph.
Their getaway route then took them southbound, past the Manor Farm Barn pub in Southfleet, through the village of New Barn and onto the B260 Main Road towards Longfield.
It was here, at the roundabout junction with Hartley Road and blocking the way for other motorists, that Owen pulled up for his dad to remove the registration plate.
The CCTV, timed at 9.31pm, also captured the damage to the front of their vehicle.
The pair then continued their journey onto Green Street Green Road and into Watchgate, passing slightly north of their home in Hill Rise, Darenth, before heading up Darenth Hill towards Sutton-at-Hone.
Once at the junction with Hawley Road, they turned left and, having been believed by police to have travelled along Lower Road, the Ford Ranger came to a halt in Plantation Road, Hextable, at 9.46pm.
Here, having parked up straddling the pavement, CCTV captured the men exiting their vehicle before Patrick Maughan was the first to walk away in the direction of Lower Road, followed by his son but on the opposite side of the road.
The court also saw footage of what appeared to be Owen Maughan on the phone and turning to look back.
Read more:
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He was arrested the following day when he handed himself in to police at Medway police station.
His father was apprehended in the early hours of June 3 and subsequently gave a prepared statement in which he stated he had been a passenger in the vehicle and had “just wanted to go home”.
Owen Maughan is now on trial accused of four offences – murder of Peter Maughan, causing grievous bodily harm (GBH) with intent to Lovell Mahon and attempting to cause GBH with intent to both Annarica Maughan and Hayley Maughan.
Patrick Maughan faces eight charges – murder and manslaughter in respect of Peter, causing the youngster’s death by dangerous driving, three offences in respect of Mr Mahon, namely causing GBH with intent, inflicting GBH and causing serious injury by dangerous driving, and two of attempting to cause GBH with intent to Annarica and Hayley Maughan.
Jurors have heard that Owen has pleaded guilty to manslaughter, as well as causing serious injury by dangerous driving and inflicting GBH in respect of Lovell Mahon.
It is the prosecution case that although Owen Maughan was the one at the wheel, his father was “actively encouraging” the manner in which he was driving.
The trial continues.
