Stolen lorry carnage
Four jailed for drink-fuelled ‘caper’ that killed mother
FOUR men were jailed yesterday for a rampage in a stolen lorry that killed a woman and destroyed a home.
The HGV was travelling at almost twice the speed limit on the wrong side of the road when it ploughed into three cars and hit pedestrian Jacqueline Wileman, a court heard.
At the wheel during the carnage was unlicensed drink- driver Karn Hill, 23, accompanied by David Mellor, 48, who had stolen the vehicle, Alan Mawhinney, 53, and 29-year-old Wayne Carroll.
Mellor had taken the eight-ton wagon from his boss after being owed a fort- night’s wages, telling him it would be returned when he was paid, Sheffield Crown Court was told.
He then spent several days drinking and taking drugs at Mawhinney’s house before going out on the road in the lorry – which they regarded as a ‘caper’.
Police spotted it being driven in a ‘fast and aggressive’ manner at 55mph in a 30mph zone and began following it. Two minutes later, at 1.35pm on September 14, 2018, it crashed into a newly-built house in Brierley, near Barnsley. Motherof-two Mrs Wileman, 58, had been ‘power walking’ near her home when she was struck.
Witness Robert Pilkington said: ‘The lorry mounted the verge where [she] was stood. All I could think was “get out of the way.”
‘Within a split second, the lorry ran straight over [her].’
Carroll and Hill tried to flee before being grabbed by passersby, while Mellor got away but was arrested at a nearby hotel. Mawhinney, who was trapped in the truck under a wall, had to be rescued by firemen.
A bottle of vodka and drug paraphernalia were recovered from the cab of the HGV.
Hill had already admitted causing death by dangerous driving and was jailed for ten and a half years.
The other three had denied the same charge but were found guilty. Mellor was jailed for 13 years; Mawhinney and Carroll were jailed for 12 and a half years.
The court heard that Carroll had already been convicted in 2015 for causing the death of a 25-year-old man by dangerous driving.
Judge Jeremy Richardson told the men, all from South Yorkshire: ‘You gave not a thought to the safety of others and exposed many people to the risk of death and serious injury whilst you executed
Drunk: Driver Karn Hill, 23 what you thought was a caper but, in truth, was an exceptionally malevolent course of conduct which had an inevitable disastrous and catastrophic conclusion.’
After the hearing, Mrs Wileman’s brother Johnny Wood said longer sentences should be available to judges in such cases.
‘We need those people off the street – they’re not fit for society, they’re not fit to breathe the same air as you and me,’ he added.