Killer driver’s ban reduced

KILLER-DRIVER Brett Kingsley

A hit-and-run driver who was jailed and banned after lying about his involvement in a fatal Huddersfield crash had his driving ban cut by appeal judges.

Brett Jack Kingsley (25) was at the wheel of his mother’s Rover 200 when he ran over 18-year-old Adam O’Toole, in New Hey Road, Salendine Nook, on March 6, 2007.

But instead of stopping, Kingsley, of Cecil Street, Royton, drove on, claimed the car had been in another accident and filed an insurance claim.

Three years later, his deceit was discovered and, in July, he was jailed for 18 months and banned from the roads for four years after admitting perverting the course of justice at Bradford Crown Court.

On Friday his case was back in court in London, where appeal judges, Mr Justice Griffith Williams and Mr Justice Calvert-Smith, cut his driving ban to three years.

The judges, sitting at the Court of Appeal, also ruled that Kingsley would not have to take a special extended re-test before he is allowed to drive again.

Mr O’Toole, of Woodhead Road, in Holmbridge, had crossed the road in front of the Rover and died at the scene of the smash from head injuries.

The impact left Kingsley’s mother’s car with serious damage, which he put down to being reversed into by another vehicle when he reported the phantom accident.

But when fragments of the car left at the scene of the crash were matched to the Rover, he was interviewed and owned up to what he had done in front of his parents.

Mr Justice Calvert-Smith said that the Crown Prosecution Service did not have enough evidence to charge Kingsley with dangerous driving.

The offence of causing death by careless driving did not exist at the time of the smash and it was, by the time he was caught, too late to charge him with simple careless driving.