Soldier killed teen couple while giving seven people a lift to Halloween party

Bradley Clough, a private with the British Army, was told today he will likely face jail time for the incident (Picture: Solent News & Photo Agency)

A British Army soldier is facing jail after killing a teenage couple in a crash while giving them a lift to a Halloween party.

Private Bradley Clough skived off duty at Halloween last year to ‘cram’ seven passengers into his five-seater Renault Clio to give them a lift to a party. 

The 25-year-old Royal Fusilier later lost control of the vehicle while taking a corner and crashed into a tree, Winchester Crown Court heard. 

The impact killed Lance Corporal Jack Paolucci, 19 at the time, and his 18-year-old fiancée Private Courtney Jennings, who’d been sitting in Paolucci’s lap in the backseat.

Two of Clough’s other passengers, Jack Latus and Kallum Ryan, were also seriously injured in the incident. 

Clough was cleared of two counts of death by dangerous driving, but had already admitted to two counts of death by careless driving.

Judge Jane Miller KC told him: ‘Just because I am giving you bail, do not think you are not necessarily going to get a prison sentence.

‘I’m making no promises. The likely sentence upon you is one of imprisonment.’

One of those killed in the incident last year was Private Courtney Jennings, who’d been sitting on her partner Lance Corporal Jack Paolucci’s lap in the backseat of the car (Picture: Solent News & Photo Agency)

Prosecutor Mary Aspinall-Mile told the court how Clough was meant to have been on guard duty at Tidworth that evening, but ‘got somebody to cover for him’ so that he could attend a party at the Cameo nightclub in nearby Andover, Hampshire. 

With Clough in the driving seat and his brother Oliver in the front passenger seat, Aspinall-Mile went on to outline how Latus had told Clough to slow down after becoming ‘concerned’ by the way he was driving.

Clough is then alleged to have told Latus to ‘chill’ before approaching a right-hand turn in an ‘aggressive’ manner.

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Aspinall-Mile further explained that the deadliness of the crash was less to do with the speed at which Clough was driving and more the fact the vehicle had been ‘overloaded.’

Each of the counts of causing death by careless driving of which Clough has been convicted carries up to two years in prison. 

He will be sentenced in the new year.

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