How can drug-driver kill two and NOT go to prison?
Heartbroken family’s plea as policeman’s son goes free
THE families of two men run down and killed by a policeman’s son while he was high on cannabis are demanding that police reopen the case after the 17-year-old walked free from court.
Max Coopey had smoked cannabis before ploughing his father’s £35,000 sports car into John Shackley, 61, and Jason Imi, 48, as they crossed the road near Ascot, Berkshire, last August.
Despite being over the drug-drive limit and having a string of previous convictions – including one for drugdriving eight weeks before the crash – the teenager was given 100 hours of community service, a £105 fine and banned from the road for two years. He was caught back behind the wheel two months after killing the men.
Last night Mr Shackley’s daughter Danielle, 31, told The Mail on Sunday: ‘We are not getting any justice at all. How can you get behind the wheel of a car while you are high on drugs, kill two people and not go to prison for it?’
Lawyers for the families say Coopey’s account of the crash suggests he may have been speeding, which should have led to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) considering charging him with causing death by dangerous driving.
They believe the police investigation was ‘flawed’ and are ‘baffled’ why officers did not submit a file of evidence to the CPS. Thames Valley Police insists there is insufficient evidence to charge the teenager with causing the men’s deaths.
Coopey, who lives with his parents in a £1million house in Ascot, has shown no remorse. Rather than apologising when he appeared in court earlier this year, he complained about how the crash ‘really has affected my mental well-being’.
The teenager’s father is a sergeant in the Metropolitan Police and his mother worked for many years as a schools liaison constable working with pupils in London. Coopey had five previous convictions for drugs offences, robbery and common assault by the time he turned 18 earlier this year. Approached for comment, Coopey’s mother said: ‘We don’t do trial by newspaper.’ In a statement, the family later said: ‘Our sympathy is with the families of Mr John Shackley and Mr Jason Imi following the tragic accident.’
Eight weeks before he killed the two men, Coopey had been stopped by police and found to be almost threetimes over the drug-drive limit. Yet Coopey’s father still allowed him to borrow his 190-horsepower Audi A5 sports car on the night he killed the two men.
Coopey picked up two friends and says he smoked ‘one and a half joints of weed’ before the crash at 11.30pm as he approached a dip in the road obscuring his view near the village of Sunninghill. His victims, who were crossing the road, were struck with such force, they were flung over the roof of the car and died immediately.
Coopey called his father who rushed to the scene in a taxi and introduced himself to officers. Coopey, who was arrested on suspicion of drug driving and later found to have a level of 3.3 micrograms of cannabis in his system, susbsequently refused to co-operate with police.
Coopey is due to be sentenced on Tuesday for driving while disqualified and not having insurance in October last year while he was awaiting trial for the drug driving charge connected with the men’s death.
Ironically, he could face jail for ignoring the ban on getting behind the wheel.
‘It would be a slap in the face to think he gets jailed for uninsured driving but not for killing two people,’ said Mr Shackley’s widow, Christine.
‘He was back behind the wheel two months later’