 Geraint Flynn was killed as he crossed the road in front of Knight's car |
A driver who joked on a website about "looking dead under a car" weeks before going on trial for killing a pedestrian has been given four years' detention. Kieran Knight, 20, added the caption to a picture of himself knowing it would be seen by the family of the dead man, Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court heard.
Knight, from Bryncoch, Neath, fatally injured Geraint Flynn, 19, when he knocked him down in Swansea last year.
He was later found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving.
The picture showing Knight lying under a car to repair it was posted on the South Wales Car Club website by the vehicle's owner.
 The judge described Knight's behaviour as 'insensitive' |
But Knight had later added the caption: "Some lovely pics of me looking dead under a car." He included the acronym "lol", understood to mean "laughing out loud".
Mr Flynn's family discovered the picture of Knight posted in the weeks before the trial.
Judge Eleri Rees sentenced Knight to four years in a young offenders' institution.
She said that although he had expressed his remorse for the death, "unfortunately your insensitive behaviour posting pictures on a website has led the family to a quite different and painful conclusion".
Ms Rees said Knight had done this "at a time when you knew the website was being monitored by the family".
 |  You could have and should have stopped - you must have felt the vehicle going over the body |
The judge told the court there was no suggestion the defendant had hit Mr Flynn deliberately but branded his driving "reckless" and "extremely dangerous".
She said Knight had admitted hearing a bang as he hit the man and said: "You could have and should have stopped. You must have felt the vehicle going over the body."
Had he done so, Mr Flynn's injuries may not have been so catastrophic, she added.
The teenager was fatally injured as he crossed the road in front of Knight's car in Swansea last year.
Knight was waiting to pull out of a junction on the evening of the England-Wales rugby international last February.
The streets were busy with revellers following the match and Knight seemed impatient to pull out, witnesses at the trial said.
Driving his father's Vauxhall car, he hit Mr Flynn before driving over his head and body.
The teenager slipped into a coma from which he never recovered and died just over a week later.
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