On CCTV, hit-run ‘hippy crack’ driver before killler crash
THE widow of a businessman mowed down by a driver – seen minutes earlier sucking on a ‘hippy crack balloon’ – last night hit out after he was jailed for only three years.
Gary Haffenden, now 21, was on bail for another hit-and-run when he ploughed into Syed Shiraz Zaidi in front of his wife and two young children.
As Mr Zaidi was dying in the road and his family cried for help, Haffenden fled the scene in his Ford pick-up truck, before dumping the vehicle ten minutes later.
Astonishingly, the yard worker had seven months earlier smashed another truck into a driver – and sprinted from the scene.
Graham Nichols had to be cut from his car with broken legs and knees. He now has to use a crutch and cannot walk for more than ten minutes.
Haffenden handed himself in to police after both incidents, and during searches of both his vehicles officers found nitrous oxide canisters – also known as laughing gas or hippy crack – and balloons.
Users who inhale the balloons filled with the gas experience a brief high.
‘He has snatched someone’s life’
However, Haffenden insisted the balloon he was filmed dragging on with his friends contained only air and a judge deemed he was not under the influence of drugs.
Yesterday the widow of Mr Zaidi, 35, who was known as Shiraz, said Haffenden’s sentence did not provide justice. The family are set to appeal for his prison term to be increased.
Afsheen Shiraz said: ‘He is a person who has snatched someone’s life and destroyed so many other lives. Our kids don’t have a father.
‘He should be given more punishment. He will be out in 18 months, which is nothing for taking someone’s life. The law should be revised so no one has to go through this again.’
At Reading Crown Court on Tuesday, Haffenden admitted causing serious injury by dangerous driving in relation to the first incident and causing death by careless driving in relation to the second.
Under current guidelines the maximum sentence for both offences is five years in prison.
He also admitted causing death while uninsured and failing to stop after a road accident.
The court heard how on August 16, 2018, Haffenden was driving a truck at 3.30am in Minster, Kent, when he crashed into Mr Nichols, a surveyor, who was three years off retirement.
On March 17, 2019, Mr Zaidi, who ran shops and restaurants near his home in Staines-uponThames, Surrey, was dropping off food to an address near Windsor after a delivery driver had pulled out of the job.
As he walked on a residential street, Mr Zaidi was hit by Haffenden, who had been doing 67mph in a 40mph zone.
His wife, daughter, three, and son, one, who had accompanied him on the errand, watched in horror from their car.
Jonas Milner, in mitigation, said Haffenden, of Kent, was newly married and will ‘remain remorseful for the rest of his life.’
Sentencing him, Judge Paul Dugdale said: ‘You were on bail for having crashed a pick-up truck into a man who spent five weeks in hospital. One would have thought you were doing your best to keep out of the driv
er’s seat, let alone a pick-up truck when you are out in a jolly with your mates, taking gas from balloons.
‘We have seen pictures of you with a balloon in your mouth. You have told us that balloon was full of air.
‘I sentence you on the basis that you were not under the influence.’
Commenting on the sentence, Jack Cousens, of the AA, said: ‘for years, politicians have said they want to increase the sentence for death by dangerous or careless driving to bring the worst offenders to account, but this still hasn’t been done.’