Today's Guardian:
Death crash accused's car sold on eBay, court told
Georgian embassy official Natela Grinina denies fatally injuring cyclist in hit-and-run crash
Natela Grinina, 34, knocked down Thomas Sippel-Dau, 54, while behind the wheel of her Range Rover in Cromwell Road, south Kensington, on the evening of 11 March 2005, Woolwich crown court was told.
Opening the case, Brendan Kelly QC, prosecuting, said: "It is the prosecution's case that Natela Grinina was the driver of that car on that occasion and that having been the driver of that car she left the scene. As you will hear over the following two weeks, she has done all within her power to avoid blame and her conviction for this particular act."
The court was told how witnesses described seeing a Range Rover travelling at 40-50mph in the 30mph zone, swerving from one side of the road to another. Sippel-Dau, a computer services manager at Imperial College London, who was travelling home to west Kensington, was thrown 30 metres on impact. A postmortem examination found he had suffered a severe head injury.
The court heard that after a Crimewatch appeal in June 2005, a car dealer in Leicester who bought and sold vehicles on the internet contacted police to say he had purchased the "leftovers" of a blue Range Rover that had been delivered to him.
During the police investigation, the janitor of Grinina's block in Gloucester Square, near Paddington, recalled seeing two women in a damaged blue Range Rover "limping" into the complex one night, the jury was told. He remembered later seeing the Range Rover as it was placed on a low-loader tow truck and taken away.
Police inquiries revealed the vehicle identification number assigned to the car recovered in Leicester was that originally assigned to a diplomatic plate on the defendant's vehicle. Grinina was an employee of the Georgian embassy.
Kelly said that when Grinina was arrested on 15 November 2005 she initially told police in prepared statements through a solicitor that on the night of the crash she had been contacted by her brother in Moscow to say her mother had fallen ill and she had arranged to go there as soon as possible.
She alleged on that night she had earlier been driven to a function at the House of Lords by a person who had asked to borrow the Range Rover, but refused to name them for fear of repercussions. The court heard that police found no record of her travelling to Russia that evening.
Kelly told the court one of Grinina's friends recalled how Grinina had arranged to pick up a mutual friend from Heathrow on 11 March, but had failed to meet up as planned in south-west London later that night. When she called Grinina's boyfriend in the early hours of 12 March, he answered to say they were in France. When asked why by her friend, Grinina is alleged to have told her: "It is a whole detective story".
Organisers of the House of Lords function remembered seeing Grinina and her boyfriend at the evening drinks gathering on 11 March but noticed Grinina left half an hour before her partner.
In a later police interview, Grinina alleged the person who borrowed her car was a man named George Gigeishvilli, a Georgian national who jumped from Westminster Bridge in June 2005. Inquiries by police showed the dead man to be a labourer who did not drive in the UK, and who had been working all day in Manchester on 11 March.
Kelly said: "The name, we say, was a work of fiction used by her to distract police."
He said analysis of Grinina's mobile activity showed a flurry of calls from her phone in the minutes after 10.15pm, the recorded time of the crash, and during that evening, and a further 80 calls from France the next day.
Grinina, who was not in court and is not being represented during the trial, is charged with causing death by dangerous driving and undertaking acts intended to pervert the course of justice by removing identification marks from a Range Rover and having the vehicle removed to Leicester for disposal. She denies both charges.
Death crash accused's car sold on eBay, court told
Georgian embassy official Natela Grinina denies fatally injuring cyclist in hit-and-run crash
- Press Association
- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 12 May 2009 22.59 BST
- Article history
Natela Grinina, 34, knocked down Thomas Sippel-Dau, 54, while behind the wheel of her Range Rover in Cromwell Road, south Kensington, on the evening of 11 March 2005, Woolwich crown court was told.
Opening the case, Brendan Kelly QC, prosecuting, said: "It is the prosecution's case that Natela Grinina was the driver of that car on that occasion and that having been the driver of that car she left the scene. As you will hear over the following two weeks, she has done all within her power to avoid blame and her conviction for this particular act."
The court was told how witnesses described seeing a Range Rover travelling at 40-50mph in the 30mph zone, swerving from one side of the road to another. Sippel-Dau, a computer services manager at Imperial College London, who was travelling home to west Kensington, was thrown 30 metres on impact. A postmortem examination found he had suffered a severe head injury.
The court heard that after a Crimewatch appeal in June 2005, a car dealer in Leicester who bought and sold vehicles on the internet contacted police to say he had purchased the "leftovers" of a blue Range Rover that had been delivered to him.
During the police investigation, the janitor of Grinina's block in Gloucester Square, near Paddington, recalled seeing two women in a damaged blue Range Rover "limping" into the complex one night, the jury was told. He remembered later seeing the Range Rover as it was placed on a low-loader tow truck and taken away.
Police inquiries revealed the vehicle identification number assigned to the car recovered in Leicester was that originally assigned to a diplomatic plate on the defendant's vehicle. Grinina was an employee of the Georgian embassy.
Kelly said that when Grinina was arrested on 15 November 2005 she initially told police in prepared statements through a solicitor that on the night of the crash she had been contacted by her brother in Moscow to say her mother had fallen ill and she had arranged to go there as soon as possible.
She alleged on that night she had earlier been driven to a function at the House of Lords by a person who had asked to borrow the Range Rover, but refused to name them for fear of repercussions. The court heard that police found no record of her travelling to Russia that evening.
Kelly told the court one of Grinina's friends recalled how Grinina had arranged to pick up a mutual friend from Heathrow on 11 March, but had failed to meet up as planned in south-west London later that night. When she called Grinina's boyfriend in the early hours of 12 March, he answered to say they were in France. When asked why by her friend, Grinina is alleged to have told her: "It is a whole detective story".
Organisers of the House of Lords function remembered seeing Grinina and her boyfriend at the evening drinks gathering on 11 March but noticed Grinina left half an hour before her partner.
In a later police interview, Grinina alleged the person who borrowed her car was a man named George Gigeishvilli, a Georgian national who jumped from Westminster Bridge in June 2005. Inquiries by police showed the dead man to be a labourer who did not drive in the UK, and who had been working all day in Manchester on 11 March.
Kelly said: "The name, we say, was a work of fiction used by her to distract police."
He said analysis of Grinina's mobile activity showed a flurry of calls from her phone in the minutes after 10.15pm, the recorded time of the crash, and during that evening, and a further 80 calls from France the next day.
Grinina, who was not in court and is not being represented during the trial, is charged with causing death by dangerous driving and undertaking acts intended to pervert the course of justice by removing identification marks from a Range Rover and having the vehicle removed to Leicester for disposal. She denies both charges.
