Family sue Qatari sheikh for payout after Rolls-royce collision that killed pensioner
A QATARI sheikh who ran over and killed a pensioner while speeding in his purple Rolls-royce Wraith is being sued for £200,000.
Sheikh Hassan Nasser Al-thani hit 66-year-old Charles Roberts with his car while driving at more than 52mph in Mayfair on Aug 22 2019.
The 66-year-old died at the scene and the sheikh was later handed an eightmonth prison sentence – suspended for two years – and banned from driving in the UK for three years by an Old Bailey judge after pleading guilty to causing death by careless driving.
Now the administrator of Mr Roberts’s estate is suing Al-thani in the High Court on behalf of the dead man’s brother Peter Roberts, demanding the Qatari royal pay him more than £200,000 compensation. The Old Bailey heard in October 2021 that the sheikh was driving in Duke of Wellington Place when he collided with Mr Roberts, a retired Network Rail signaling manager from Harpenden, Herts, who had been walking near Hyde Park.
Judge Richard Marks heard he had been briefly driving at 52 to 54mph in a 30mph zone. The judge said he was “satisfied” that had Al-thani been driving ‘Your excessive speed and carelessness occurred only over a matter of a few seconds’ “in or around” the speed limit Mr Roberts’s death would have been avoided. But he spared him from jail after hearing his barrister Simon Csoka
QC say that Al-thani suffered from a range of “serious” health issues, such as morbid obesity and sleep apnoea, and would have been at risk from Covid in prison.
“I accept, and this is important, that your excessive speed and carelessness occurred only over a matter of a few seconds,” the judge added, suspending his sentence.
In documents lodged at the High
Court, lawyers representing the administrator of Mr Roberts’s estate say that his vulnerable brother Peter needs to be compensated by the sheikh for the death of Charles, who looked after him while he was alive.
“Peter Roberts was supported by the deceased and is now supported by his cousins, who have power of attorney to deal with his financial affairs on his behalf,” say the lawyers.