WHAT A JOKE
Family’s fury as hit-run driver who killed two brothers while high on cocaine is jailed for just nine years
A DRUG-DRIVER who ploughed into a family at more than 60mph as they crossed the street, killing two young brothers, was jailed yesterday for just nine years.
Robert Brown had downed a cocktail of drugs including cocaine before getting behind the wheel and hitting Corey Platt-May, six, and Casper, two.
The killer had 57 previous convictions for 209 separate offences and had been released from prison only six days beforehand. He had never held a driving licence.
Last night, the brothers’ grieving family condemned a sentence that will see Brown, 53, freed in little more than four years.
Their grandmother Carolyn Platt, 53, branded the sentence a ‘joke’. The boys’ mother Louise, 28, backed Whitehall plans for tougher punishments for killer drivers.
In a statement, she said ‘those who rip families apart seem to be the ones who get off more lightly’, adding: ‘ To watch your children die in front of you is something no parent should have to experience. Our family should have had so many years ahead of us … but these have all been snatched away because of Robert Brown.
‘We are living a life sentence … he will be out of prison in just a few years. Our only hope is that some good comes out of their deaths through the introduction of tougher punishments for drivers who think they are above the law.’
The boys’ siblings – Connor, nine, and Cooper, four – witnessed the collision on a 30mph residential road and still suffer nightmares, Warwick Crown Court heard. Judge he but had acknowledged Andrew to impose Lockhart a ‘just’ no sentence, QC penalty said could make up for the deaths.
The maximum term for causing death by dangerous driving is 14 years. But the judge said Brown’s would have been 12 years, cut by 25 per cent due to his guilty plea.
Mrs Platt-May said she did not blame the judge for the sentence.
Earlier, she sobbed as her husband Reece, 30, read out her victim impact statement saying: ‘Every minute I picture their lifeless faces on the road … This monstrous act will haunt me.’ Witnesses said Brown had been ‘driving like a madman’ with his Ford Focus rocking on its wheels. Tyre marks showed only a ‘last gasp’ emergency braking before Brown hit the family in Coventry in February. Prosecutor Rachel Brand QC said the car came to a halt at the end of the road, where passers-by grabbed his keys. Sentencing, Judge Lockhart said Brown had led a ‘life of crime and incarceration’ and told him his ‘selfless torn His a convictions family and reckless apart’. date back driving to 1976 had and include robbery, kidnap, possessing weapons, burglary, shoplifting, criminal damage and motoring offences leading to 30 driving bans. He was released from a jail term for carrying a machete, six days before the collision. The court heard Casper was knocked out of his push-along car, while Corey was thrown several yards. Brown was found to have been driving at at least 61mph – Career criminal: Robert Brown and had cocaine and two antidepressant drugs in his system.
Brown, of Coventry, admitted driving while disqualified and without insurance or a licence. He was given a 15-year driving ban. Due to time on remand, he will be eligible for release in June 2022.
His passenger Gwendoline Harrison, 42, of Wyken, Coventry, also tested positive for cocaine. She admitted assault after hitting someone who tried to intervene – and was jailed for six months.
In October, ministers signalled plans to increase the maximum sentence for causing death by dangerous driving. The parents’ lawyer Rebecca Hearsey said: ‘Judges are hamstrung by current sentencing tariffs.’