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news
Lee Beevers (West Yorkshire Police)Increased sentence for hit-and-run driver who killed cyclist while speeding at 80mph in 30mph zone before torching car
A man already banned from driving who hit and killed a cyclist while speeding behind the wheel of a friend's car at 80mph, leaving the rider for dead and torching the vehicle in a bid to cover his tracks, has had his jail sentence increased.
CCTV showed Lee Beevers driving at speeds of 82mph on a 30mph road in Normanton, West Yorkshire, on the evening of 13 April last year when he hit Alan Tankard — a 33-year-old cyclist wearing hi-vis clothing crossing the road on his bike.
Beevers, 27, was initially jailed for four years and eight months, but has seen his sentence increased by 16 months to six years after it was deemed unduly lenient by the Court of Appeal, the BBC reports.
The driver, described by Solicitor General, Michael Tomlinson KC MP, as a "persistent offender" who "repeatedly ignored requests from his passengers to slow down before he callously fled the scene", drove off without checking on Mr Tankard and set fire to the Honda Civic in the hope of covering his tracks.
The burnt-out vehicle was discovered close to the scene of the crash and West Yorkshire Police arrested him the following day.
Mr Tankard was pronounced dead at the scene, the cyclist's family offering a statement saying Beevers "will never know the pain and suffering he has caused".
Ahead of his initial unduly lenient jail sentence, handed to him at Leeds Crown Court in January, Beevers had pleaded guilty to charges including causing death by dangerous driving, driving while disqualified and failing to stop after a road accident.
At the time, the court heard that the four passengers in the car with Beevers, one of them in tears, had urged him to slow down before the fatal crash – after which, the driver told them to "shut the f*** up" and drove away from the scene at speed.
One of the vehicle occupants subsequently said that Beevers "did not seem to care" about what had happened, although none of them alerted police or the ambulance service to the crash, and they were subsequently urged by the driver to help him set fire to the car.
"[It has been] determined that Lee Beevers should spend longer behind bars for his reckless and heartless actions," Mr Tomlinson said during the Court of Appeal hearing, concluding that the punishment "won't change what happened" but suggesting it now recognised "the severity of the crime".
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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36 comments
Of course, HY66 ZZB is a paragon of virtue in the detached-from-reality Lancashire Constabulary universe- you can bet W800 GMC is still driving around despite no MOT, insurance or VED for almost 5 years. I haven't detected it since 16th February, but why would he change the habits of a lifetime which have served him so well and economically?
Without any doubt. This criminal and those like him. ARE EVERY CYCLISTS WORST NIGHTMARE on our roads.
I'm so sorry for the loss of Alan's life and my sincere condolences to his family.
Six years. WTAF?!?
The passengers should be prosecuted under joint enterprise for failure to report the killing and helping destroy evidence - obstruction of justice.
Depends on whether they were Black.
His sentence should be at least twice as long and his driver's license should be permanently revoked.
Better, but still inadequate.
The sentence is some kind of joke even with the extra bit added on.
I don't understand how he's prosecuted for a driving offense when he was disqualified - surely it should be manslaughter along with arson etc.
It is cases like this that make me advocate for punishments that include the permanent loss of the criminal's taste buds along with a permanent life long dose of whatever the opposite of viagra is.
Such cases for me are less of driving fails and more of society fails.
What an absolutel scumbag. The sort of person that makes you wonder if we should have the death penalty. Astonishing how little punishment there is for doing something that was always likely to kill someone and then having less than no regard for your victim when it happens. Words fail me with people like this. I don't think any punishment is too horrible for them.
The guy's an oxygen thief. I'd say a life ban from driving would be appropriate.
However he was already banned so the owner of the vehicle made the bad decision to let a banned driver take the vehicle, with no insurance.
That decision needs to be an offence with significant punishment otherwise scumbags will be able to drive despite a ban
Whilst I can't deny a feeling of satisfaction that this serial offender and killer will spend longer behind bars, will the extra punishment reform him? If he comes out just as bad as he went in, then what is the point? Apart possibly from preventing him doing the same thing again while he's behind bars.
Longer sentences do not deter, and what does deter, the likelihood of being caught, has significantly reduced on our roads for the past......let's see, would it be thirteen years? While the police who are out there are doing a sterling job of catching the most obvious law-breakers, there simply aren't enough of them to be an effective deterrent.
I'd say keeping this person out of society as long as possible is probably the main aim here... I'd suggest this should still have been a far higher sentence... already banned, off his tits, failed to stop, attempted to pervert the course of justice, dangerous driving... what more does someone need to do to get a sentence even towards the top end of the potential banding?
A second point however... along with the fear of being caught, people need to understand that its not a slap on the wrist thye face. Keeping this chap behind bars as long as possible will at least provide a heads up to his immediate friends and family that such behaviour is life changing for them as well as the poor souls killed.
Until we start taking serious action against dangerous driving that has not killed anyone nothing will change. No one goes out planning to kill someone with their car. The do not think the crash will happen to them, therefore they do not think about the consequences of getting caught or even the chance of getting caught killing someone.
How many times will this driver or others have driven at similar speeds in similar locations with no consequence? Clamp down on dangerous driving and save lives. Don't just react perfectly to every fatality, that's too late.
Exactly this. We need to increase consequences for dangerous but non-fatal driving, and also run campaigns that improve the understanding in the population as a whole that driving offences are serious offences, not trivial misdemeanors.
I'm confused when you say longer sentences don't deter then say we need more Police - to do what give them a slice of cake? More Police would surely be to catch dangerous drivers to lock them up - not give them cake. Would locking them up for a day stop them? No. So locking them up for a long time would surely? Don't you think if this driver knew he'd serve 15 years for recklessly killing someone by driving 80 in a 30 zone he would have not have done 80mph?
More police increases the chances of being caught which is what most drivers fear. Whereas if you look at reported speeds, drivers reason they can speed as no one will catch them.
You can only go to jail if you are caught and if that level of sentence is applied but neither of those are likely, so risk takers are not deterred.
Thanks for sparing me the ordeal of explaining that again!
No one goes to jail for speeding no matter the extremity of the offence.
You can only go to jail if
a) you drive dangerously
b) you are unlucky and cause a fatal collision
c) you are caught
You could ban every driver who kills someone for life and it would have very little effect on the road fatality figures, because it's very rare for the same driver to kill on multiple occasions.
I believe the driver training and testing system in this country is among the best in the world, this is why we have some of the safest roads despite (as far as I can tell) minimal enforcement of dangerous driving. However there are a small minority of drivers who are very bad and act without fear of consequence, because they think they are great and will never have a crash, and they are confident they will not be prosecuated for their driving style. Until we systematically remove these drivers from the roads or condition to drive in a safe manner and not like they are on a track day, nothing will change. These drivers know how they should drive, after all they have passed their test, but they choose not to.
I wasn't suggesting jail for speeding anymore than you are for phone use. It was just an easy example of why people get away with things. I'm sure a vast majority would not want points on their licence.
Watching dash cam series, there are a lot of poor drivers who get away with stuff due to other competent drivers.
Though it's rare, it's also something that should absolutely be avoided. I can't imagine how a victim's family would feel if a dangerous driver is allowed to drive again and then another life is taken. I think a lifetime driving ban is a sensible precaution to avoid putting anyone into that situation and it sends the message that a license is not a right and can be removed.
You are right about the driving test etc, but a big part of the problem is the number of people driving who have not passed (or even taken) a driving test. They're not going to fear disqualification, because they don't have a licence anyway! So a custodial sentence is possibly the only potential deterrent. Then there are those who drive whilst disqualified. And those who return to driving after disqualification, without having to undergo any additional training or another test. There definitely needs to be more enforcement, stronger punishments for non-fatal offences in addition to fatal ones, and a culture change that recognises that driving offences are just as serious as other types of offence.
From what I've read of studies of criminals it is the odds of being caught that determine whether or not they risk committing a crime, not the potential punishment. This is why capital punishment doesn't work as a deterrent, nobody actually commits a premeditated murder thinking it's okay, if I get caught I'll only do 20 years in prison instead of being hanged, they do it on the basis of whether or not they think they can get away with it.
Punitive sentences work on the more lightweight criminals. The career ones are almost certainly never going to change unless the focus is on rehabilitation and giving them the tools to change and become a productive member of society. Its been proven time and time again that this is the case.
The issue is when someone commits a crime so severe I struggle not to want to string them up by their testicles.
I'm just curious: on what is the assertion that longer sentences are not a deterrent based? I would think that potential sentence combined with the risk of being caught are a deterrent. If the probabilty of detection is close to 1 but the sentence ridiculously low (say, for the sake of argument, a 100 GBP fine), who would care?
Then again, many criminals are borderline idiots, there's no statistical evaluation of risk/reward involved in what they do. At least not in my professional experience.
It's based on the little of sociological and criminality studies on my degree course and a little reading since. If you want to spend time and energy proving that draconian sentences deter, please feel free.
The most common example of such sentences failing to deter are pickpockets working the crowd at the public hanging of a pickpocket.
Whilst I agree that even the most draconian sentences are unlikely to deter it would be quite nice to see this numbskull serve at least 30 years plus at His Majesty Pleasure as it will at least be one less knob on the road !
True, but the opposite also applies. If the probability of detection is close to zero, but the sentence ridiculously high, offenders wouldn't care. That is why increasing the sentences does not act as more of a deterrent.
Chances are this guy was only caught driving without a valid licence because he killed someone. There is little point in a lifelong driving ban if they are just going to drive anyway with little chance of being caught.
Indeed, but the technology exists to prevent use of a car without a valid licence, put a chip in the licence card, and a reader on all new cars, so they won't start without the chip being present.
No more questions about who was driving int he event of a recorded offence.
No more driving while suspended.
Obviously it would take time for all the old rolling stock to feed out of the system, but after a certain point anyone driving a car over a certain age will be suspect for evading driving bans.
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