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London Ambulance (via Oxyman on Wikimedia Commons under CC BY SA 3.0)Driver who killed teenage cyclist and lied about hitting a deer given suspended sentence
A driver has avoided being jailed after he killed a teenage cyclist and lied to police who stopped him claiming he 'hit a deer'.
The boy's mother said the motorist showed 'no humanity' when he 'tried to save himself' by driving off and leaving her child to die on the side of the road.
Oscar Seaman, 17, had been cycling back from his girlfriend's house when he was struck by Lloyd McMurtary's Mitsubushi Warrior on the A134 at Northwold.
Norwich Magistrates Court heard that after the collision on the A134 at Northwold, Norfolk, McMurtary panicked and left the scene
Wayne Ablett, prosecuting, said a number of people stopped to try and help the fatally injured cyclist but McMurtary 'was not one of those people'.
He said McMurtary was eventually stopped by police who were heading to the fatal crash and spotted his damaged car.
Mr Ablett told the court that he 'lied to police' and told them he had 'struck a deer'.
McMurtary, of Redcastle Road, Thetford, appeared at court on Friday, March 26 for sentence having previously admitted failing to stop after the crash which happened at about 9pm on September 3 last year.
The Eastern Daily Press report that at the sentencing Mr Seaman's mother Bethany read out a statement on the family's behalf.
She said she would 'describe our life as perfect up to the day he was killed' but now said every day was 'unbearable'.
The mother-of-four described her son as on as being 'the funny one of the family' as well as being an energetic character who 'always made me smile'.
Mr Seaman had been studying carpentry and brick laying at the College of West Anglia.
She said McMurtary had treated her son 'worse than a wild animal'.
She added: "He left my 17-year-old boy there to die. He was too busy being selfish and trying to save himself.”
Mrs Seaman said he showed her son 'no compassion or humanity'.
McMurtary, who also admitted driving otherwise in accordance with a licence and having no insurance, was given an eight-week jail sentence, suspended for 12 months.
He was also ordered to do 200 hours unpaid work and was disqualified from driving for 12 months.
Debbie Reynolds, mitigating, said McMurtary was 'most incredibly sorry for what happened' and 'wishes that night never happened'.
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45 comments
Metro has an article on this story. They published a photo of the motorist, Mr McMurtary:
Yes, they also concluded the story that the Magistrates were going to jail him for a whole 8 weeks but decided to suspend it as he had never been causght driving without the license, insurance or lying to the cops about who he ad caught before. (previous good character).
Strange how this is not frontpage DailyMail bile while Charlie Alliston was...
I'll tell you what - he's done a very good job of disappearing off the face of the internet and tabloid front pages.
First post on here- Morning all!I genuinely appalled reading the report on this kids death and the sentence handed out. You get a minimum of 12 months ban for DD10 and although it passes, its slow and you have to get your backside out of bed earlier and arrive home later than you did when you had your liberty. 24 months would serve to focus the mind for longer and curse the day (in this case) that you lied and fled.
And on that theme, don't forget the proposed ten years in jail for being rude to a statue or something...
The big issue here is that driving without a valid license isn't regarded as dangerous or careless...
TBH the correct solution is either explicitly include not having a valid licence in the legal definitions of dangerous driving OR have a separate set of offences for injuries/fatalities when driving without a valid licence...
Personally I prefer the first, probably having careless as without a valid licence and dangerous for driving while disqualified (so ANY incident while disqualified can automatically be dangerous driving as well...)
I would also argue that failure to stop/report an accident should drastically reduce any sentencing reductions for pleading guilty/remorse and should be evidence of substandard driving for both civil and criminal cases. There should be consideration as to whether the failure to report an incident resulted in the death. It should also be possible to be convicted on the basis that while the other party was at fault for the original collision, if you had reported the incident promptly they would have survived...
In most incidents I have heard of, it is almost impossible that the driver doesn't know they hit something and therefore should be stopping.
I don't think that I'm an unreasonable person but driving uninsrured and leaving someone at the side of the road to die of their injuries having hit them should surely warrant a life ban from holding a driving license. Nobody who holds others in such contempt should be allowed behind the wheel.
Looks like the news is out in Norfolk. If you hit anyone, drive away.
www.edp24.co.uk/news/crime/land-rover-hits-pedestrian-mile-cross-recycli...
Here is the link to Ryans Law petition again if you haven't already signed.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/575620
It's not April 1st is it?
It's spelled LICENCE, not "license" in the UK.
A 17 year old boy is killed by a total scumbag and you're commenting on the spelling!
That takes pedantry to a new level.
Also, he's incorrect on two counts. Firstly, it's licence (lower case) rather than LICENCE (capitalised); and secondly, the reason is not because it's the UK but because they were using the noun, rather than the verb.
Also, there should have been a second comma after the non-restrictive subordinate clause.
Well spotted! I approve.
I'm still none the wiser.
I have only just grasped fronted adverbials thanks to a year 4 or 5 niece !!
The scandal here appears to be that the toerag was not even charged with anything more serious than failing to stop and driving without license or insurance.
The CPS appear to have doubled down on the families misery by failing to charge this guy correctly.
There is no serious charge to appeal the sentence on.
https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/crime/man-admits-failing-to-stop-after-fata...
toerag was not even charged with anything more serious than failing to stop and driving without license or insurance
That's because the other aspects of the incident are not considered to be 'a real offence' by the legal system, as 'you're bound to kill the odd one'.
The wording in the report states .... "Norwich Magistrates Court has heard how Lloyd McMurtary, the driver of the Mitsubushi, had no time to avoid Mr Seaman but panicked and left the scene."
I'm guessing that means that in their opinion / eye witnesses statements (?) the collision was "accidental" so it wasnt down to his poor driving or they had no way of proving it. The police initially did arrest for Death by Dangerous Driving though. Unfortunately we will never know based on that report amd I can't find anything else but a details-lite article that there was pre-inquest report in Dec 2020.
However it sounds like a dangerous junction based on this article. Although the householder rightl;y states that it is only dangerous because of drivers.
Blimey: "98 accidents involving the emergency services have happened outside his home. (...) Adrian Jenkinson has barricaded his home with reinforced steel girders, concrete and metal plating to prevent it being hit by vehicles. (...) So far, the house has not been hit (...) But a car has ended up in his front garden."
He does have quite a barrier in his front garden (https://goo.gl/maps/YhSLcBExn6eY87aS6).
It is not really obvious what is going on here. Only drivers from the other side of the road can end up in his garden, so they would actually have to drift onto the wrong side of the road. As it's after a long curve I guess it's a location where impatient drivers will try an overtake.
If you have to cross the A134 or join it from the side street, you can't see far to the left due to the curve, so you may well have to cross just hoping that there won't be a fast driver that gets you before you can get across.
Of course drivers should only go so fast that they can stop within the distance they can see, but we all know many drivers don't.
That is some barrier he has built there.
He obviously has some concerns.
The relevent authorities have at least painted a couple of these 4 foot SLOW notices on the road...
That must surely work...
He could put a statue of Churchill in his front garden. Then six police officers would be stationed there all the time and any driver who even gets close will go to prison for ten years.
Its just another one of those "fast" rural A roads, I'd imagine drivers are routinely speeding at 70mph plus, overtaking across the central hatchings, etc. Exactly the sort of thing I used to do in my performance car/driving like an idiot days.
Over the past 15 years or so there seems to have been a concerted effort by highways teams to remove those sorts of road markings and to narrow the carriageway at the edges. Road out of Reading towards Benson is one of them, and there are few heading north west out of Salisbury to Bath where they've been removed. The hatchings seem to say "this road is wide enough for three cars" to the average boy racer...
Thomas Lewis Way in Southampton is another one - three fatalities to my knowledge on that since it was built (20 years ago) including a police officer.
Another instance of someone that didn't stop to render assistance - should have received prison time for that alone.
Sadly, we have become accustomed to joke sentences for killing cyclists, even when the driver has no license, insurance, doesn't stop after the killing etc. We now all know the punishment the b****** who kills us can expect: not much!
I'm still looking at the photo of the scene trying to figure out how "Lloyd McMurtary, the driver of the Mitsubushi, had no time to avoid Mr Seaman.''
Does the UK system of blind justice mean your magistrates are actually blind?
I'm disgusted. Again. As are all of us. As, I think, any reasonable person would be. And yet this keeps happening - we're supposed to be in a democracy, so why do a few overpaid cretins keep letting these criminals back onto the roads to carry on killing and ruining lives?!
We are supposed to believe the claim that lardy lloyd had no time to react when he also drove off and then when stopped claimed he hit a deer.
I don't believe his claim unless 2 or 3 others can substantiate it.
Should be banned for life.
That is absolutely, unspeakably fucking scandalous. How can you not consider taking the law into your own hands after that?
If I was that lad's family I'd be exacting justice myself
I suspect they're too devastated to think of doing anything much TBH...
But you're correct on the sentence. How any judge/magistrate can go home proud of a day's work after that I just can't fathom. I can't comprehend why they're not thinking "what exactly is the point of me"
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