Families tell of loss of girls in road crash
THE PARENTS of two promising teenage athletes have given “harrowing and heart-rending” accounts of the impact of their loss as a drunken soldier was jailed for six years for killing them by crashing into them while distracted by vomit in his car.
Michael Casey, of St Paul’s Road, Tottenham, was sentenced at Winchester Crown Court for causing the deaths of Stacey Burrows, 16, and Lucy Pygott, 17.
The 24-year-old, of 4 Rifles, had been out drinking with colleagues and was over the drinkdrive limit when the accident happened at a pedestrian crossing near his barracks in Aldershot, Hampshire, on November 8.
The court heard that he did not see the red light at the crossing because he was distracted by vomit left in the passenger area of the car by a colleague who had been sick when he had given him a lift home.
Casey was given a six-year jail sentence which means he should be released on licence after three years.
As the sentence was announced by Judge Keith Cutler, Stacey’s mother Helen Burrows cried out from the public gallery: “I do not get my daughter back in three years, do I.”
Reading her victim impact statement to the court, Lucy’s mother Lisa Pygott said: “Mr Casey has broken our precious family, we are lost without Lucy.
“The British Army trains soldiers to kill, Mr Casey killed with his loaded weapon of a hot hatch car.”
Judge Cutler praised the families for providing their “heartrending and harrowing accounts of loss and pain” but said he had to be unemotional in applying the sentencing guidelines. He said: “No sentence I can pass can bring Lucy and Stacey back.”