'Suffering' family of Black Country couple furious guilty killer yet to be jailed

Megan Salt, aged 74, and her husband Barry Salt, 73, from Wednesbury, both died in hospital following the collision near Stone, Staffordshire in January 2022.

Barry's daughter Sue believes the delay in sentencing Zia Akbar, 31, has added to the trauma her whole family is feeling after the tragedy.

Several times family members have travelled hundreds of miles to see him sent to jail at Stafford Crown Court but the hearings have cancelled or postponed at the last minute.

Sue told the Express & Star: "Knowing he is still walking around on bail after admitting killing dad and Megan almost two years after they were killed is really upsetting.

"Each time the sentencing is cancelled it gets so much harder for us to deal with and we feel that the courts give absolutely no concern for the victims and the impact that the constant cancellations have on us."

Akbar, East Close, Walton, near Stone, initially denied causing death by dangerous driving in January this year but then in June pleaded guilty to causing their deaths on January 16, 2022.

At each hearing the Salt's family travelled from across the country to witness the proceedings, however, several sentencing dates have been postponed or delayed, awaiting various reports but now Sue has no date for when the family will see Akbar jailed.

Sue added: "We all submitted our Victim Personal Statements in December of last year and then had to ask for permission to resubmit these in August of this year due to the impact of these cancellations had had on all of us.

"We are unable to move on from our grief and suffering of losing two of the most precious people in our lives in such a tragic way, we didn’t even get to say our final goodbyes to them as their passings were so quick on the day of the accident.

"We all still have sleepless nights, nightmares, relive the day the accident happened and what followed, and this will only start to ease, and we will only be able to start to move on once Mr Akbar has been sentenced and we can start the next phase of our grief journey."

She added: "The courts don’t consider the effect and impact these delays and cancellations have on the family of the victim’s mental health."

The Ministry of Justice has previously blamed the backlog of court cases on the Covid pandemic, a shortage of barristers and industrial action of barristers. To increase the number of cases being heard the MoJ created Nightingale Courts, such as the one at Park Hall Hotel, Wolverhampton to help clear the backlog.

The Crown Prosecution Service have been approached for a comment concerning the delay in Akbar's sentencing.