DRIVER, 90, KILLS 2 PEOPLE AND WALKS FREE

He hit wrong pedal

GUILTY: Philip Bull ( killed Clare Haslam and Deborah Clifton ( THE family of a woman killed by a 90-year-old motorist who wrongly pressed the accelerator pedal instead of the brake say they have not had justice after he was spared jail.

Deborah Clifton, 49, and her partner Clare Haslam, 44, were crushed by an automatic transmission Ford Focus driven by retired textiles merchant Philip Bull and died from the catastrophic injuries.

Sentencing Bull, from Wythenshawe, to a suspended sentence at Manchester Crown Court, Judge Martin Walsh ruled it would not be in the public interest to send him to immediate custody.

He said: “It will not serve as a deterrent to you or to others. It will not put right the harm that has been done.

“While it would, of course, be a harsh punishment, the fact is that you will live for the rest of your life in the knowledge your unintended actions on this occasion resulted in the deaths of two people. That is your burden to bear.”

Bull’s barrister Richard Vardon, had argued the circumstances of the tragic case were “exceptional” but the collision on March 7 outside Withington Community Hospital had nothing to do with the age of his client who had no medical problems at the time.

For more than a decade the defendant had been the carer DON’T you just love ’em! Celeb babes just adore flashing their bits on social media – here’s a selection of the hottest this week… for his wife of 65 years, Audrey, 87, who had a number of health problems including Alzheimer’s disease.

He said Mrs Bull could not be cared for at home without the defendant and she would have to be rehoused.

On Tuesday, some family members of both victims gasped in the public gallery as the judge announced the two-year sentence was to be suspended.

After sentencing, one man in the public gallery shouted “the justice system is shite”, while a woman told relatives of Mr Bull: “I hope you dad lives a long time to regret this. I hope he thinks about them every day.”

Outside court, Ms Clifton’s tearful sister, Julie, said: “I am angry, devastated.

“His defence barrister said how remorseful he was but he has never once directed that at the family.”

Bull, who pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to two counts of causing death by dangerous driving, was banned from the wheel for life.