A boy racer who killed a Wolverhampton man while “showing off” in his high-powered car was locked up for six years today.

Uninsured Tobias Pearce, who had never taken a driving lesson, was speeding through Heath Town when his new Mazda 323 smashed into a Honda Civic he was trying to goad into a race.

Walsall Football Club bar worker Jamel Thomas, a 21-year-old passenger in the Honda, was flung through the window of the car and died instantly.

Pearce, aged 19, from Park Village, fled and was traced by police later. He was convicted of causing death by dangerous driving following a trial last month at Wolverhampton Crown Court.

The jury heard how he had been careering along at almost twice the speed limit in a bus lane when he crashed into the Honda on Lincoln Street, off Wednesfield Road, in the early hours of July 12 last year.

Locking him up at Birmingham Crown Court today, Judge Sybil Thomas told him: “You were showing off in the powerful car you had just bought.

“Cars can be lethal if not driven properly, as the grave consequences of this case prove.”