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London Ambulance (via Oxyman on Wikimedia Commons under CC BY SA 3.0)Driver who killed teenage cyclist and lied about hitting a deer given suspended sentence
A driver has avoided being jailed after he killed a teenage cyclist and lied to police who stopped him claiming he 'hit a deer'.
The boy's mother said the motorist showed 'no humanity' when he 'tried to save himself' by driving off and leaving her child to die on the side of the road.
Oscar Seaman, 17, had been cycling back from his girlfriend's house when he was struck by Lloyd McMurtary's Mitsubushi Warrior on the A134 at Northwold.
Norwich Magistrates Court heard that after the collision on the A134 at Northwold, Norfolk, McMurtary panicked and left the scene
Wayne Ablett, prosecuting, said a number of people stopped to try and help the fatally injured cyclist but McMurtary 'was not one of those people'.
He said McMurtary was eventually stopped by police who were heading to the fatal crash and spotted his damaged car.
Mr Ablett told the court that he 'lied to police' and told them he had 'struck a deer'.
McMurtary, of Redcastle Road, Thetford, appeared at court on Friday, March 26 for sentence having previously admitted failing to stop after the crash which happened at about 9pm on September 3 last year.
The Eastern Daily Press report that at the sentencing Mr Seaman's mother Bethany read out a statement on the family's behalf.
She said she would 'describe our life as perfect up to the day he was killed' but now said every day was 'unbearable'.
The mother-of-four described her son as on as being 'the funny one of the family' as well as being an energetic character who 'always made me smile'.
Mr Seaman had been studying carpentry and brick laying at the College of West Anglia.
She said McMurtary had treated her son 'worse than a wild animal'.
She added: "He left my 17-year-old boy there to die. He was too busy being selfish and trying to save himself.”
Mrs Seaman said he showed her son 'no compassion or humanity'.
McMurtary, who also admitted driving otherwise in accordance with a licence and having no insurance, was given an eight-week jail sentence, suspended for 12 months.
He was also ordered to do 200 hours unpaid work and was disqualified from driving for 12 months.
Debbie Reynolds, mitigating, said McMurtary was 'most incredibly sorry for what happened' and 'wishes that night never happened'.
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45 comments
I'd imagine he'll be selling the motor and/or moving from where he lives, seeing as there are only a dozen houses on that road. Not familiar with that neck of the woods but it looks a quite affluent late '60s/early '70s estate....
Of course, the reality is, when your family is visited by tragedy like this, the last thing a decent human being wants to do is to visit it upon the killers family. Two close friends have lost friends to knife crime, have had to face grinning unrepentent killers in the dock, and as hard as that has been, they wouldn't want to visit that feeling on anyone else.
Unless there are massive mitigating circumstances not mentioned in this report, this is GENUINELY the worst sentence I've seen for a convicted killer driver. Just awful.
I mean, an uninsured hit and run killer driver who lied about hitting and killing someone, and they only get a 12 month revocation of their licence? You get that kind of ban for driving at 35mph in a 30 zone four times (rightly, in my view). How on earth is this not a 10 year ban, at least?
To add (now that I've calmed down a bit) - for me, the benchmark for miscarriages of justice for killing cyclists is the Killer Driver Dr Helen Measures, who killed Denisa Perinova. Either her or Killer Driver Gail Purcell, who killed Mick Mason. Sadly, I think this will be the benchmark of god-awful sentencing.
The nasty man was driving one of these while uninsured
Or licensed either as he admitted driving otherwise in accordance to his license.
I was wondering what this meant, so had a look and it could mean no license, provisional only but not supervised/L plates, or driving a class of vehicle that you're not licensed for.
It seems meaningless to remove a license from someone for 12 months, when they were driving around unlicensed previously.
I'm sure this family would have success in appealing this. I sincerely hope they have the strength to do so.
How the judiciary treat humanity seems a disgrace at times.
If I was that lad's Dad McMurtary would have begged to have gone behind bars. Atrocious sentence.
My deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Oscar Seaman.
My thoughts are very much with you.
The circumstances of the collision are not clear from the press report. I'm surprised he wasn't charged with causing death by driving while unlicensed / uninsured.
In any case, the driving ban should have been a lot longer.
... if not a permanent ban?
So you literally don't need a license or insurance to drive a car? I mean seriously? If you can kill someone, run without calling an ambulance then lie to the police and totally get away with it then honestly, what's the point of a license and insurance?????
Just how does he get such a nothing sentence? I don't understand.
Absolute devastating. Though i cant say that im not at all surprised with the outcome. My deepest sympathies and condolences to the family of the deceased.
How can such scum get away with such an act of vehicular manslaughter/murder is beyond me. I wouldnt want this guy behind the wheel of any sort of vehicle for the rest of his life.
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