Overview
- Sheffield Crown Court sentenced Corey Owen Cooper, 19, to five years in a young offenders institution for causing the death of Josh Atkins and serious injury to Gabe Wiggett.
- He had passed his driving test roughly 24 hours earlier and, at age 17, crashed his grandfather’s Fiat Grande Punto in Stannington on November 11, 2023.
- Police evidence put the car at about 53mph in a 20mph area on Myers Grove Lane before it struck a metal barrier and overturned.
- The court heard he had performed wheel-spins or ‘doughnuts’ earlier that evening, and a witness reported him saying, “What have I done, I’ve killed my best friend.”
- Friends described dashboard warnings linked to a faulty ABS system, and Atkins’ family said his organ donations saved four people as they renewed calls for a graduated licence system.