WATCH: Moment man chased by police before running down woman on Sutton Coldfield golf course
This is the moment a cowboy roofer who took police on a 70mph chase through the streets of Birmingham before ploughing into a mother of three as she played golf stepped over her body as he fled the scene, a court has heard.
Video footage released by Staffordshire Police shows van driver John McDonald, 52, damaged vehicles, 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 62-year-old Ms Cherry had been looking for her ball near a stream when McDonald hit her, causing her multiple catastrophic injuries that she died from in hospital on April 15, the day before her 63rd birthday.
Ms Cherry’s husband Clint Harrison shouted her name to warn her the van was approaching as it careered over an embankment but she “could not possibly have got out the way”, the court was told.
Prosecution counsel Michael Burrows KC said 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.
Ms Cherry’s loved ones sobbed in the public gallery as the list of injuries she had sustained were read out, including multiple rib fractures, torn carotid arteries and lacerations to her liver and spleen.
After suffering multiple strokes, Ms Cherry would have been severely disabled if she had survived her injuries, and the decision was made to withdraw treatment.
John McDonald, who looked at the floor in the dock throughout the hearing and held a tissue in his hand, admitted causing death by dangerous driving on the day his trial was due to start on Monday, after previously denying manslaughter.
The court heard that, on the morning of the fatal collision, the defendants, who all 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, 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.
