'We invited driver who killed our son to his funeral - then he showed his true colours'

Teenage soldier Jack Paolucci was killed in a crash with his fiancée Courtney Jennings - now driver of overloaded car has been jailed

A grieving couple invited the driver who killed their teenage son to his funeral - before claiming he showed his "true colours" by "lying" about the crash. Ben and Becky Paolucci said they talked to Bradley Clough at their son Jack's wake - and "would have given him a hug" had he admitted the truth.

But the judge who sentenced Clough for causing death by careless driving said it was "less than attractive" that he had lied to police about being blinded by oncoming lights when his overloaded Renault Clio smashed into a tree with seven people inside. Jack and his fiancée Courtney Jennings, both serving soldiers, were killed and two other passengers were injured.

Speaking in detail for the first time since 25-year-old Clough - a private in the Royal Fusiliers - was jailed earlier this month, the couple, from Stockland Green, Erdington, said they just wanted him to show some remorse. They added they were still waiting to find out exactly how Jack died more than two years after the tragedy.

READ MORE: Sweethearts killed in crash ‘packed more in two years than most do in lifetime’

Ben and Becky were at home when they were awoken in the early hours of Saturday, October 30, 2021 and told the unimaginable news that their son, a lance corporal with the 1st Battalion, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, had died. Becky said: “We had two policemen knock on our door, just after three in the morning.

“They told us Jack had died. We asked about Courtney as they were attached. One didn’t go anywhere without the other. They said Courtney had died too. You can’t grieve properly – we didn’t know what happened. We just wanted him (Clough) to show some sort of remorse. All we wanted was for him to just admit it.

“This is what’s been hard – just the lies. They tried to get him to be remorseful. He said he felt ‘shocked’.”

Ben said: “Originally we had sympathy for the driver. If Jack had been driving, we know how bad he would have felt. Yes we did invite him to the funeral but after that he showed his true colours.”

Clough's Clio, which was meant to carry five people, had seven inside, including 19-year-old Jack and Courtney, aged 18 and from Burntwood, near Lichfield, when it crashed near their army barracks in Tidworth, Wiltshire. He was driving them to a Halloween party at a club in Andover, Hampshire, on October 29, 2021.

But he lost control at a corner and the car skidded off the road and hit a tree just before 10pm. Winchester Crown Court heard no-one on the back seat was wearing a seatbelt and a screw in a tyre was causing a slow puncture.

Two other passengers, Kallum Ryan and Jack Latus, were seriously injured. Following a week-long trial last December, Clough, from Bacup in Lancashire, was cleared of two counts of causing death by dangerous driving and another two of causing serious injury by dangerous driving following the crash. But he admitted two counts of causing death by careless driving and was jailed for three years.

Ben and Becky said they knew very little of what happened before the trial took place. They said they were still to be told their son’s cause of death and awaited a full death certificate more than two years on. But they both said the hardest part for them had been the alleged failure of Clough and some of the other passengers to tell them truthfully what had happened that night.

'We weren’t told of what he had died of'

Ben and Becky travelled to Wiltshire immediately after being informed of the tragedy and were met by police in a hospital car park, where they said they were "told everything". They said Courtney’s family were told ‘in a Tesco car park’. They said: “We wished it has been done somewhere else.”

But they said they only learned in court what injuries their son had suffered. “We weren’t told of what he had died of,” Becky said. “His injuries were part of the accident analysis. We were given an interim death certificate but the cause of death was undisclosed. We heard in court it was head and chest injuries.”

Without a full death certificate, Jack is still on the electoral roll and his parents receive letters for him. Becky said: “You can’t really grieve. You’ve got all these things you’re having to wait for before you can move on. As nurses, we know when he was pulled out of the car he had a pulse. But we don’t know what happened then.”

READ MORE: Heartbreaking tributes to engaged teen sweethearts as killer driver jailed

'It was nice to know Jack had been singing'

Ben and Becky said Clough's brother Oliver was the front seat passenger in the Clio and some of the group, including Jack and Courtney, had arranged to take a cab before changing their plans when it did not arrive. At the five-day trial, the couple found out more details bit-by-bit.

They said: “We knew nothing at all. We saw the CCTV just before we went into court." They heard Mr Latus – also in the back of the car - had urged Clough to slow down and said: 'Brad, chill', just before the crash. Becky said: “You want to know what happened.

“They said Jack was singing in the back of the car. He had the most awful voice but it was nice to know he had been singing. The ones in the back had been knocked straight out.

“It was good that Jack Latus, out of all of them, actually told the truth.”

READ MORE: Teen with 'kindest heart', 18, dies in tragic crash alongside fiance, 19

'All we wanted was for him to just admit it'

Passenger Andrew Hill told the court during Clough's trial that an oncoming car had its lights on full beam and ‘blinded Clough as it came around the corner’. During the trial Clough then said: “I was mistaken. There was a bright light.” But CCTV evidence had said there were no other cars in the area at the time of the crash.

Ben and Becky said they were angered too that Clough had posted photos of his new car within weeks of the accident, and another photo of him ‘flexing’, posing, just before the trial.

Ben continued: “Bradley texted us just before the funeral. He said ‘I don’t know what to say’. We invited him and his brother to the funeral. He seemed genuine. I spent the whole wake of the funeral speaking to them.

“If that was the person who continued in the whole process I don’t think it would have gone to court. It was not what he did but how he reacted to it.

“We all grew up and drove cars and did things we shouldn’t have done. People have asked ‘should Bradley have gone to jail?’ If he had said ‘I’m an idiot, I’m so sorry it happened’, I would have given him a hug. But he didn’t afford us that.

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“They were a very close-knit group – Jack, Jack Latus, Kallum Ryan. We have thousands of photos of them together with Courtney. Jack’s room was the main area they met. Most of the ones in their group have left the army now. We thought these were his friends."

Clough was also banned from driving for three-and-a-half years and will be required to sit an extended driving test before being allowed to drive again.