By Chris Brooke
A DRIVER with an appalling record of offences behind the wheel has been jailed for less than six months for mowing down and killing a schoolteacher. Mark Webster even laughed and joked after ploughing into Anthony Wilkinson, who was out celebrating his 35th birthday. Webster, who had been on a six-hour drinking session, refused to stop his van as his victim lay dying at the side of the road, despite pleas from his two teenage passengers. The jobless father of three claimed he thought Mr. Wilkinson was a refugee, telling the two youths: ‘It doesn’t matter. It was only a Kosovan.’ Webster, 36, was arrested 16 hours after the accident when his passengers came forward. He was not charged with drink-driving because by this time a breath test proved negative. He did, however, admit careless driving, having no insurance, failing to stop, failing to report the accident and driving whilst disqualified. Despite a record of 21 convictions for driving whilst banned dating back 20 years, magistrates in Hull were only able to sentence him to five and a half months in prison. They also disqualified him from driving for ten years. A spokesman for Humberside Police admitted last night that the sentence bore ‘no relation to the suffering caused’. ‘It’s a very sad story, ’ he added. ‘A woman has lost her husband and a family has lost someone they care for very much under very traumatic circumstances.’ Webster will serve an additional six months as he was out of prison on licence at the time of the crash. He had been jailed for 21 months at York Crown Court in December 2002 for a number of motoring offences including driving whilst disqualified, having no insurance and dangerous driving. Magistrates heard how Mr. Wilkinson was celebrating in Hull when the tragedy happened on the night of April 4. Webster’s white van hit him in the back as he stepped off the kerb while trying to hail a cab. Prosecutor Joanna Golding explained how his passengers begged him to stop. But Webster refused, telling them to shut up. ‘He thought it was comical, ’ she went on. ‘He laughed about the accident.’ Miss Golding said the maximum sentence of six months for driving whilst disqualified ‘does not reflect what Mr. Wilkinson’s family have gone through’. Friends and family gathered for his funeral yesterday. He was head of chemistry at Longcroft School and Performing Arts College in Beverley, East Yorkshire. Headmistress Lesley Hughes said: ‘Everyone at the school is deeply shocked and saddened by what has happened. He will be sorely missed.’ Mr. Wilkinson’s wife of eight months, Helen, said: ‘I feel lost, devastated. ‘Life is very unfair.’ David Davis, Tory MP for Mr. Wilkinson’s constituency of Haltemprice and Howden, called yesterday for courts to be given increased powers in such cases. ‘I am very strongly in favour of an extension of the law for those cases where there’s a flagrant abuse, ’ he said. Norman Brennan, director of the Victims of Crime Trust, said the punishment was ‘derisory’. ‘This man should have been locked up for years, ’ he added. (from The Daily Mail)
Notes Magistrate – a person who acts as a judge in law court that deals with crimes that are not serious: He will appear before the magistrates tomorrow. Constituency – any of the areas of a country that elect a representative to a parliament MP – Member of Parliament
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