Eight years for hit and run killer

A 22-year-old speeding learner driver who mowed down and killed a young mother in Cradley on Mothering Sunday was jailed for eight years today.

Leanne Moore, aged 25, who had a 10-month-old daughter, was hit while she was standing on the pavement saying goodnight to friends who had just got into a taxi.

Uninsured driver Paul Jones and three passengers fled from the scene in Barrack Lane, Cradley, leaving her dying in the road, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.

He was at the wheel of a 2.6-litre Rover bought for £160 the previous day and travelling at up to three times the speed limit after drinking when tragedy struck in the early hours of March 2.

Jones was being pursued by police after ignorning repeated attempts by officers to make him stop after tearing round corners on two wheels and forcing terrified pedestrians to leap out of the way. The car had been involved in a series of thefts from other vehicles earleir in the evening.

He also turned a deaf ear to pleas to halt from scared passengers and was blinded by fogged-up windows because he did not know how to operate the vehicle’s demister, said prosecutor Mark Rees. Jones mistook the taxi collecting Miss Moore’s friends outside the Withers Pub for an oncoming vehicle and mounted the pavement to race through a gap.

The car was doing up to 60mph in the 20 limit and knocked down Miss Moore, throwing her into the air as the vehicle ploughed into a garden wall and parked Nissan. Jones, of Leonard Road, Wollaston, admitted causing death by dangerous driving.