US Air Force member Jasmine Dessaure given suspended sentence over fatal Suffolk crash

Left · 2Jasmine Dessaure, 37, a US servicewoman based at RAF Mildenhall, was spared jail at Peterborough Crown Court on Friday 9 October 2026 for causing the deaths of a married couple by careless driving. 1 2 Left · 2Dessaure was driving a Jeep Cherokee that collided with a Nissan Note on the B1106, a single-carriageway road through Thetford Forest at Brandon, Suffolk, on 15 April 2023. 2 1 Left · 2The Nissan's occupants, Dilipan Sebastiampillai, 43, and his 41-year-old wife Dorota, from the London Borough of Haringey, both died, Suffolk Police said; the force said both vehicles left the carriageway and the Nissan caught fire. 1 2

Left · 2Dessaure, of Brandon, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to two counts of causing death by careless driving, and wept as Judge Sean Enright sentenced them to 12 months in custody suspended for two years, an 18-month driving ban and 180 hours of unpaid work. 1 2 Left · 2Prosecutor Mark Tomassi said Dessaure, who was alone in the car, was travelling towards Elveden while the Nissan came the other way, and that a momentary lack of concentration lasting just under two seconds led to a loss of control. 2 1 Left · 2Mr Tomassi said it happened at about 5.30pm, with deterioration at the road edge where it meets the grass verge, followed by a yawing of the vehicle from side to side after overcorrection, at roughly 40mph in a 60mph limit. 1 2

Left · 2He said the resulting near head-on collision caused massive damage to both vehicles and catastrophic injury and death to the Nissan's occupants, and that the lapse of attention was not aggravated by any other circumstances. 2 1 Left · 2Ali Bajwa KC, for the defence, said Dessaure wanted to express how sorry they were, and that they initially believed they had hit a pothole before the tyre left the road and entered a trench. 1 2 Left · 2The court heard the victims' family did not want victim personal statements read out; the judge called the case "an enormous tragedy" and noted that Dessaure and others tried to help the Nissan's occupants but could not get them out. 2 1