Ex-boxing champ jailed over crash

FORMER world boxing champion Naseem Hamed was jailed for 15 months yesterday after he admitted dangerous driving following a horrific crash in his €470,000 sports car.

The sportsman wrecked his Mercedes McLaren near one of his Sheffield homes in May last year in a high-speed, head-on collision near a blind dip in the road which left another man with fractures to “every major bone in his body”.

The former WBA world featherweight champion took a “stupid risk” whilst showing off his powerful sports car, Sheffield Crown Court heard yesterday.

Jailing him, Judge Alan Goldsack, said: “I have no doubt the only possible sentence here is an immediate custodial sentence.”

The 32-year-old, of Wyvern Gardens, Dore, Sheffield, was driving at at least 90mph on the wrong side of the carriageway as he approached a blind dip on May 2, 2005.

The court heard Hamed was anxious to impress businessman Asif Ayub, 46, who was a passenger in his Mercedes McLaren.

Less than half a mile from Hamed’s house, his car, with the registration plate NAS 1, was in head-on collision with a Volkswagen Golf, driven by 38-year-old Anthony Burgin.

As he jailed Hamed and banned him from driving for four years, the judge said: “You could easily have killed Mr Burgin.”

The court heard Mr Burgin’s wife Clare was also seriously hurt in the collision.