St Leonards drug-driver jailed over fatal collision in Pevensey

Sussex Police said that Terry Lee Majors reached high speeds as he drove on the A27 at Pevensey when his Ford Fiesta veered off the road into trees.

The impact caused the death of his passenger, Cheryl Brookes, aged 35, from Bexhill, police said.

Majors appeared before Lewes Crown Court and has been jailed for causing death by dangerous driving over the incident in July 2021.

Police reported that the court was told how Majors and Cheryl, a mother-of-two and a grandmother, had gone for a night away in Brighton.

He lost his temper after he saw another man look at her Instagram, police said.

Police said that Majors, 40, from St Leonards, drove them back to East Sussex, and was heard abusing her as she made a mobile phone call to relatives.

She said: “He’s driving like a lunatic. He is doing 100mph and is scaring me.”

In text messages to a friend she described how Majors had become “jealous” and “paranoid” before he left Brighton in a rage.

Sussex Police said that Majors, 40, appeared to try and attempt to overtake a vehicle, lost control, and crashed into trees on the A27 Pevensey bypass near the Hankham Hall Road bridge over the carriageway.

Cheryl was declared deceased at the scene.

In statements at the time her family said Cheryl was a “kind-hearted, caring and loving person, always there for people and always putting others before herself.”

Witnesses described Majors erratic and dangerous driving between leaving the hotel and the collision. It included overtaking and undertaking other vehicles at high speed.

He was injured and taken to hospital, where a blood test showed he was over the limit for cannabis.

At Lewes Crown Court on April 19 he admitted causing death by dangerous driving.

Majors, of Marina, St Leonards, was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison and was disqualified from driving for five and a half years.

In a Victim Personal Statement, Cheryl’s brother William Brookes, 38, of Eastbourne, thanked the emergency services who responded to the incident.

He said: “Cheryl was the life and soul of every party, she was the glue that held us all together. Her children are devastated and her grandchildren will grow up without knowing their grandmother.”