The son of a multi-millionaire couple was found guilty yesterday of causing a high-speed car crash that left a baby paralysed and brain-damaged for life.

Antonio Singh, 21, was speeding at 70mph and overtaking on a 30mph road when he crashed into the car carrying two-year-old Cerys Edwards. The child will need 24-hour care for the rest of her life.

The case was the first in the UK to use evidence from a “black box” recorder, which helped to estimate Singh’s speed at the time of impact and ultimately helped to convict him of dangerous driving.

Simon Davis, for the prosecution, described the device as the automotive equivalent of a black box flight recorder, which is analysed after air crashes. The device, fitted to the air-bag system, continuously records the car’s performance on a loop and is mainly used by engineers to diagnose problems. In a crash, it freezes and stores the speed and braking information at the point of impact.

A jury at Birmingham Crown Court returned a unanimous verdict that Singh was guilty of dangerous driving. He faces up to two years in jail. He was bailed until sentencing after his parents, Ranjit and Baljinder, agreed to guarantee a £1 million surety.

The couple are owners of the chicken suppliers Boparan Holdings Ltd.

Singh, from Birmingham, 19 at the time of the crash, had had his licence for only six months when he collided head-on with Tracy and Gavin Edwards’s vehicle. Singh was driving his mother’s Range Rover sport.

Judge Frank Chapman, the Recorder of Birmingham, told Singh he should expect a custodial sentence. He said: “You have made a mistake and you will have to be punished.”

Speaking after the case, Cerys’s father, Gareth, 43, a self-employed builder from Sutton Coldfield, said: “It has at least closed a door for us, that’s the best way that I can describe it. This man has dragged us through hell.

“Cerys is a little fighter and the doctors say it’s a miracle she survived.”

Singh will be sentenced this month.

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