OAP DIES OF HEART ATTACK DAYS AFTER BEING JAILED
AN OAP who knocked down and killed a woman in a supermarket car park has died just days after being locked up.
It is thought William Heagren suffered a heart attack at Wormwood Scrubs and died on December 14. The 87-year-old was handed a 27-month prison sentence on December 4 for causing death by dangerous driving.
The tragic incident which resulted in the pensioner’s incarceration claimed the life of 64-year-old Jeanette Newman.
On May 26 last year, Heagren struck Mrs Newman and her friend Sarah Taylor, 53, with his Ford Fusion in the Sainsbury’s car park in Long Drive, South Ruislip.
Heagren, from Harrow, reversed into the women after pressing the accelerator thinking it was the brake.
While her friend was seriously injured, Mrs Newman died in hospital.
Harrow Crown Court heard that minutes before the fatal crash, Heagren had bumped his car into a bollard and that the shunt had left him “raging” with himself for “being a bloody fool”.
However, he still got back into the car, wrongly put it into reverse and then hit the wrong pedal.
Judge Lana Wood refused the defendant’s request for bail pending an appeal during a hearing at Harrow Crown Court.
The pensioner’s barrister, Michael Wood, described Heagren as a “thoroughly decent man”, argued it was an “exceptional case” and that the sentence was “arguably manifestly excessive”.
However, the judge was not persuaded and told the court it was “the shortest sentence I can impose”.