A cowboy roofer led police on a 70mph chase through the streets of Birmingham before veering onto a golf course and fatally injuring a mum-of-three in front of her husband.
John McDonald, 52, drove on the wrong side of the road, mounted pavements and rammed a police car following him at least eight times during a 12-minute pursuit before he entered Aston Wood Golf Club in Shenstone, Staffordshire, where Suzanne Cherry was playing golf with her husband on April 11 last year.
Worcester Crown Court heard Suzanne had been looking for her ball near a stream when McDonald hit her, causing catastrophic injuries. She died in hospital on April 15, the day before her 63rd birthday.
Her husband Clint Harrison shouted her name to warn her after seeing the van emerge over an embankment but she ‘could not possibly have got out of the way’, prosecutor Michael Burrows KC said.
He told the court Mr Harrison shouted ‘You bastards, you’ve killed my wife’ as McDonald, his son Johnny McDonald, 23 and fellow passenger Brett Delaney, 35, fled following the collision.
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Suzanne’s loved ones cried in the public gallery as the list of injuries she had sustained were read out.
The court heard she suffered several strokes and would have been severely disabled if she had survived her injuries, and so the decision was made to withdraw treatment.
John McDonald admitted causing death by dangerous driving on the day his trial was due to start on Monday, after previously denying manslaughter.
He was jailed for 13 and a half years today.
Judge James Burbidge KC told him: ‘You, John, drove the van onto that golf course, a public place, and drove into the unsuspecting Suzanne Cherry, such that she was killed from the terrible injuries your driving inflicted upon her.
‘You killed a person and devastated many.’
The court heard all three defendants admitted conspiracy to commit fraud between February 17 and April 12 last year by making false representations that roofing work was needed when it was not.
The court was told all three defendants, who worked under the guise of a company called Approved Roofs Ltd, had conned elderly women out of thousands of pounds by carrying out unnecessary and shoddy roof repairs to their homes.
For conspiracy to commit fraud, Johnny McDonald was sentenced to 32 months’ imprisonment and Delaney 28 months, with time served reduced from their sentence.
John McDonald was given a concurrent sentence of 48 months for conspiracy to commit fraud.
Mr Burrows said they had charged ‘exorbitant amounts for bad work’, with their elderly victims left feeling pressured to ‘go along with it’.
Four victims – aged 61, 79, 83 and 88 – had been deceived into paying for unnecessary roof works, with one forking out nearly £10,000, with an extra £7,000 needed to repair the damage the defendants had done to her roof.
On the morning of the fatal collision, they had been following an elderly customer to a cash machine for payment after carrying out work on her home when they were spotted by police.
Reaching speeds of up to 70mph, the chase through the streets of Birmingham saw multiple vehicles damaged by McDonald’s van as he weaved in and out of traffic, drove through red lights and over pavements and tried to ram the police car following him at least eight times.
After the collision with Suzanne, all defendants fled the scene and when John and Johnny McDonald were arrested on suspicion of manslaughter on April 16, the elder McDonald said: ‘Someone died?’
Of the police pursuit and crash, Mr Burrows said: ‘The victim was a pedestrian, there were injuries to other victims and damage to other vehicles.
‘There were other driving offences committed at the same time – these are all factors that increase the seriousness of the offence.’
Reading his victim impact statement while looking directly at John McDonald in the dock, Mr Harrison said his wife’s life was ‘violently and senselessly ended’.
He said: ‘I stand before you today not as a man seeking vengeance, but as a man who had the very foundation of his life destroyed.
‘Suzanne’s life was violently and senselessly ended by the actions of this defendant.
‘This life was not abstract, it was the life of the brightest and most beautiful soul I ever met.’
He added: ‘They valued their temporary freedom more than her right to live. The damage is irreversible.
‘We are condemned to a lifetime of grief. They must be held fully accountable for dismantling our family.’
Suzanne’s brother Adrian Cherry described her as ‘tough and resilient’.
He said: ‘Sue was the victim of such cruel events. One minute enjoying a game of golf, the next ploughed down by a reckless act. My life will never be the same.
‘I remember her zest for life and adventure. She lost her life in what should have been a safe place. To this day, I have no answers.’
The three defendants will be sentenced later.
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