Pregnant woman, 21, faces jail for driving off from crash that killed young brother and sister

A pregnant woman has been warned she could face jail after she admitted leaving the scene of a crash that killed a teenager and his young sister.

Roman Casselden, 16, and his nine-year-old sister Darcie Casselden both died at the scene in Ashlyns, Pitsea, Essex, on February 1 last year.

Deimante Ziobryte, of Benfleet, has pleaded guilty to failing to stop at the scene of a collision.

The charge, read by the clerk of the court, said that Ziobryte was the driver of an Audi A1 which failed to stop following an accident which caused injury to Roman and Darcie.

Prosecutor Rohini Majumdar said Ziobryte was driving a car which was involved in a collision with an e-scooter which the two youths were driving.

She said: ‘They came towards a junction.

‘The defendant swerved to avoid a collision but unfortunately they made contact and the two youths on the e-scooter have suffered fatal injuries as a result.’

She said Ziobryte ‘continued to drive and didn’t stop’ until later when she ‘made multiple calls to family members but not to police or emergency services’.

‘At no point did the defendant return to the scene of the collision to speak to police,’ Ms Majumdar said.

She said Ziobryte had no previous convictions.

Essex Police said in an earlier update that Ziobryte would face no further action in relation to a possible offence of causing death by dangerous driving.

Ziobryte’s representative in court asked for the case to be adjourned for pre-sentence reports, and said Ziobryte was pregnant.

Presiding magistrate Paul Fisher bailed Ziobryte until May 6 when she is due to be sentenced at Basildon Magistrates’ Court.

He warned Ziobryte: ‘We can’t rule out a term of imprisonment.’

Inquests into the deaths of Roman and Darcie, which were opened and suspended last year pending the outcome of the police investigation, heard that both siblings died of traumatic head injury.

Essex area coroner Michelle Brown, who opened the inquests separately in Chelmsford in February, said the pair had been ‘travelling on an e-scooter’ which was ‘involved in a collision with a motor vehicle that was travelling east along Ashlyns approaching Stokefelde’.

The coroner said emergency services attended and Darcie was pronounced dead at 7.10pm and Roman at 7.50pm.

She gave the provisional cause of death for each child as ‘traumatic head injury pending further investigation’.

The children’s mother Emma said in a statement released through police that ‘their love, kindness and spirit live on in the hearts of all who knew them’.

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