A HIT and run driver has admitted killing a Blackburn grandmother by dangerous driving outside her home.

Salim Chand, 25, today admitted causing 70-year-old Freda Holt’s death when he hit her ‘at high speed’ in Revidge Road, Blackburn, on the morning of November 8.

He also pleaded guilty to committing a series of acts to pervert the course of justice after he carried on driving and then arranged for the hired silver Mercedes to be taken to a body repair shop in Farnworth, near Bolton.

He failed to tell either the police or the company that he had been involved in an accident.

Detectives worked with the hire company to activate a tracker system placed in the car and found it within 30 minutes of the company being contacted.

After an initial full-scale manhunt to find the driver of the vehicle, Chand handed himself into Greenbank police station two days after the hit-and-run.

Chand had asked for the hearing to be brought forward so that he could enter guilty pleas.

He also admitted that he was driving the £70,000 2008 Mercedes C63 AMG on the day without insurance or a licence.

Following the guilty pleas at Preston Crown Court, police said the car which killed Mrs Holt had been hired from a company in Preston.

It had been due back to that company at 9am on the morning of the incident, yet Chand, who is from the Blackburn area, was still behind the wheel after 10am, travelling along Revidge Road away from Preston.

DI Brian King, lead investigator in the case, said inquiries were still ongoing into the actual speed that the car was travelling, but that a post-mortem examination of Mrs Holt confirmed her injuries were consistent with being hit at ‘high speed’.

DI King, of the Force Major Investigation Team, said Mrs Holt and her husband Ray had been out shopping that morning and had just returned home.

Mrs Holt, who also left three children, Richard, Rachel and Benedict, and six grandchildren, had been removing items from the car when she was fatally struck by Chand’s fast-moving car.

Chand, who’s address was given as Iddesleigh Road, Preston, also collided with a white van further up the street, losing a wing mirror.

DI King said Mrs Holt had simply been ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time’.

Following the hearing the family of the devout Catholic churchgoer were too upset to speak.

Sentencing is likely to be in April.