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news
Stockport Road, Timperley (via StreetView).pngDriver jailed for eight years for deadly drugged 60mph horror crash
A driver who was high on drugs and drunk when he hit a cyclist at 60mph has been jailed for eight years.
Vicky Myres, 24, was on a bike ride with her boyfriend’s mother when she was hit from behind by Ajay Singh, 26 in August this year.
She broke her neck in the collision and was pronounced dead in hospital. She was later found to have suffered 66 injuries.
As we reported at the time, the driver hit her with such force that his VW Polo threw her 57 metres through the air on Stockport Road in Timperley, south Manchester.
Her last words were: “Gosh, that car is going fast.”
Singh failed to stop at the scene although his windscreen was shattered so badly he couldn’t see through it.
Cocaine and cannabis were later found in his blood and he told police he had taken spice and ketamine.
He had a bottle of wine with him in the car.
Singh admitted causing death by dangerous driving, failing to stop and failing to report an accident at an earlier hearing.
He was jailed for eight years and banned from the road for 10 years.
According to the Guardian, Sarah Crosby, the mother of Vicky’s boyfriend James, told the court in a victim impact statement: “Vicky was lying there. I knew immediately she was dead. I had to tell James Vicky had died.
“He held his head in his hands and shouted, ‘No! No! No!’ And I saw the pain and anguish overcome him. To hear your grownup son sobbing is utterly heartbreaking.”
Nick Myres, Vicky’s father, told the court in a statement: “She was kind, loving, caring, adventurous, determined and fun. I feel older and sadder every day. I have my memories but will never have any new ones. I’m trying not to let hate and anger take over.”
Jailing him for eight years, Judge John Potter, told him: “The strong inference from the evidence is that I’m sure from the driving at the time you must have been significantly impaired by both alcohol and drugs.
“When she died Vicky Myres was just 24 years of age. She was a good, bright, intelligent, enthusiastic person who had the world at her feet. The hurt felt by her family is raw and immediate.”
Latest Comments
- OnYerBike 4 min 49 sec ago
You're absolutely right that it is the common attitude, which is precisely why I think it would behove the media to try to rectify that situation...
- Clem Fandango 18 min 34 sec ago
Someone release some cows up there. It'll be a massacre.
- Steve K 41 min 14 sec ago
If this works, it looks amazing.
- hawkinspeter 50 min 40 sec ago
They've got the concept of a plan for it
- The_Ewan 1 hour 12 min ago
The BBC write-up of this exact same story is a lot more "Yay for the police" than this version....
- Rendel Harris 2 hours 9 min ago
It was indeed originally sold as an ebike jacket on the basis that the rider would be making less effort. The manfacturer claims some breathability...
- jon m 2 hours 25 min ago
C62 SLT is £2999, not £2499 Still very cheap for Ultegra Di2...
- Another_MAMIL 2 hours 39 min ago
Indeed. While it makes sense to start with the professionals, I agree the older cyclist could be where the sales volume lies in the long term....
- Clem Fandango 3 hours 15 min ago
£300m today, so the actual final cost..... who the F knows. All so as drivers we can sit stationary in more lanes than before. Sweet.
- Secret_squirrel 3 hours 18 min ago
Wot no Wahoo Systm (including Sufferfest)?...
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29 comments
We really shouldn't be worrying about the driving ban here but questioning what you actually have to do to get the maximum prison sentence. Did he need to be driving without a seat belt too? Texting? Return with a truck and do it again? Hit a policeman?
"The judge acknowledges some may view his sentence as not ‘adequate’".
Not some, every one. Every single person. Except you. So why?
"But he says he hopes it provides some support to those affected by Ms Myres’ death".
Read her fathers statement again, it's not just one life this horrendous human being has ruined!
The whole thing generally makes me want to shed a tear, the justice system is done and I wouldn't be letting it take its course in similar circumstances!
THIS, all this.
There are no life time driving bans simply because people who get them would just drive illegally. The criminal justice system then would be putting them in prison at increasingly longer intervals every time they got caught.
To drive legally in the UK you need as a minimum third party car insurance. Most insurers will not touch people with a criminal record and/or lengthy driving ban so the majority either give up driving or just drive illegally as they cannot afford the prices of the insurers who will insure them.
So essentially there's no adequate method to keep people who have forfeited the privilege of a licence off the roads, and no will to lock them up? Hard to believe it's technologically impossible to enforce a ban properly.
Something which makes the whole licencing system a bit of a joke. Maybe the emphasis should be less on who is allowed to drive, than on where cars are allowed to go? A lot easier to spot a car in an area where all cars are banned, than to spot an unlicenced-driver among many other drivers.
Not surprisingly this seems to be one of those occasional stories where the DM comments are uniformly condemning of the motorist. One could probably construct a mathematical formula to predict the tenor of DM comments on such stories, depending on the demographic group of the perpetrator and victim (especially the former, it seems to me).
Also, a horrific story, and another example of how lax motoring-related laws and attitudes are. What's the point of the maximum sentence for death-by-dangerous when nobody ever gets it or anywhere near it? It seems like the effective 'maximum' is about half the theoretical one, so maybe they should just double the official one?
Yet another joke of a soft touch sentence. Why not ban him for life!
And so much for being ...... and refraining from alcohol.
How do you know that he was a *practicing* Sikh? Just having a particular family name doesn't mean you follow a specific, or any, religion, does it? Whatever his beliefs, he has behaved like a despicable human being, and deserves a far harsher punishment than he received IMO
Further commentary from the Manchester Evening News, the judge is quoted as saying:
The accident occurred 20 minutes from my front door, it's a nice, easy open route into the Cheshire countryside. I'm honestly at a loss how this brilliant young woman's life was cut short by the driver's rank, callous stupidity. "Not adequate" seems to me to one of the understatements of the year.
I can accept that sometimes accidents happen but this is one of those cases that clearly isn't an accident in any way and should get a much longer sentence since by getting into a car in such a state you are ultimately playing Russian roulette with other people as the target.
This beggars beleif that the scumbag did not get the highest tariff possible (assuming that's now 15 years?). Agree that the ban should not be served concurrently, it should be on release.
Any chance of this being examined as too lenient a sentence?
Why not anyone that is found to have been negligent in their duties while driving so that it leads to the death or might plausibly lead to the death of another human being has their license taken away, no buts or ifs?
Or we could just go Hammurabi on it. I'm leaning towards that more and more.
A non-cycling story here in which a "more sympathetic to the courts" defendant killed a woman in a hi-viz jacket out walking her dog: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/03/businessman-jailed-after...
I'd happily stick a penny on income tax to take more scum off the roads and streets for longer periods of time. Never mind all this business about re-offending rates, if they're locked up for a substantial period then they won't be out and about to re-offend or not.
I'd be happy if we brought back hanging to take scum like him out of the gene-pool completely, we need to protect society from the likes of this person and frankly he does not deserve his life nor tax payers money.
For God's sake ban him for life, he does not deserve a driving licence, what are the courts afraid of!
Why are there no lifetime driving bans?
Exactly this.
And if such a thing exists, what would you have to do to get one? Get out, serve your ban and do this again?
Let's be realistic: this isn't the only time this lowlife has driven absolutely smashed. This is the time he hit someone at 60, killed them, and drove off, while absolutely smashed. Why would society ever bestow that privilege again on someone with such disrespect for it?
Why not 14 years, how many more aggravating factors do you need to give this oxygen waster the maximum tarif.
Needless waste of life and being able to ever get behind the wheel is simply abhorrent.
Earlier this week in the Manchester courts another excuse for a human being was convicted of murdering a housholder who he deliberately ran over while trying to steal his car. Sentence was life with a minimum of 27 years.
Yet in equally horrific circumstances this rotten specimen gets only 8 years. Good that the police got to him immediately after the collision or his drugs and drink would not have even been a factor against him.In which case his sentence would probably have been half that.
Or even less..
this story from yesterday saw the driver get only 2 years for a similar killing, despite him also failing to stop: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-41859051
In the light of which, 18 months for the young man, Charlie Alliston, seems somewhat harsh.
Kill someone because you're shit-faced, get eight years (rightly so.)
Kill someone because you're late getting home to watch Coronation Street, get a fifty-pound victim's surcharge.
"He was jailed for eight years and banned from the road for 10 years."
So - losing your right to drive is worse than losing your liberty then eh?
You get off your tits and murder someowe with a car, and the worst part is the loss of licence for a while.
Sick.
assuming the ban doesn’t kick in after the prison sentence what would be the point of a driving ban being shorter than the prison term?
you can’t drive in prison.
You're not really getting this are you.
I cannot imagine why this should ever want to be behind a car wheel again, nor any reason at all why we should let him. I also cannot understand why this is not murder. Yes, I know, 'intent'. You really think someone can get this high and then drive a car purely by bloody accident?
if you know intent why even post this?
its horrific, I know, but the driver did not intent to kill. So it’s manslaughter at best.
Because, frankly, the definition seems to me stupid. No, he didn't intend to kill this specific person. He did deliberately get drunk and high, deliberately get into a car, deliberately drive it round other people, deliberately keep driving after hitting someone with astonishing force. The ability of legal minds to pretend that the word ' intent' does not apply astonishes me. If I walked down the street hitting everyone I saw with an axe would that be 'unintentional' as well or does the magic only apply if you're sufficiently pissed to have stopped caring.
Yes is horrific. Many things done on our roads are horrific. I fail to see how treating them as essentially trivial little failures of driving skill will fix the issues.
Don't agree (though obviously you're right legally!). Having a few pints the night before, driving next day, getting involved in an accident at 35 in a 30, and get done for still being a bit over the limit is one thing. In such a case I would agree there was no Intent.
But to get utterly drunk, take drugs, then decide to drive and not only that but decide to drive incredibly fast in a built up area shows a degree of Intent, in my view.
Weird inversion there. Someone off their face on drugs could be argued to have less ability to make a rational decision than the daily criminal driving their deathmobile in with all the other drivers making similarly shit choices.