A hit-and-run driver who last year killed a mother of two when she was cycling on a street in Hackney, east London, has been jailed for 11 years and three months after admitting causing death by dangerous driving. The length of the prison term handed down reflects a change introduced two years ago in the maximum sentence for the offence.

The victim, 36-year-old Gao Gao, who was associate director of leadership philanthropy at LSE, died in the Royal London Hospital the day after 29-year-old Martin Reilly, crashed into her on Whiston Road on 21 September 2023.

At his sentencing hearing at Snaresbrook Crown Court yesterday, it emerged that the motorist had a number of previous convictions and was on police bail at the time of the fatal crash, reports the London Evening Standard.

The court heard that despite the weather conditions being wet, he was driving at nearly 50mph on the road, known locally as one used by rat-running drivers and which has a speed limit of 20mph.

Reilly had no insurance and was on the wrong side of the road when he crashed into the cyclist. He fled the scene with his father, who was a passenger in the Nissan Note car, and handed himself into police later.

Handing down the sentence, Judge Caroline English said: “This offence is quite obviously so serious that nothing other than an immediate and substantial custodial sentence can be justified.”

At yesterday’s hearing, defending counsel Daniel Murray said in mitigation that Reilly was genuinely remorseful, telling the court: “He didn’t set out that day to hurt anyone. He has also written a letter expressing his deep sorrow and shame for what has happened.”

He said that the father of six suffered from mental health issues, and that it was likely that he suffered from PTSD after almost being killed in a stabbing four years ago, which may have caused a panic attack while he was driving.

The judge accepted that Reilly’s remorse was “entirely genuine,” but noted that “not a single word” of his supposed mental condition had been raised with a psychiatrist who conducted an assessment of him ahead of the sentencing hearing.

Before passing sentence, Judge English said: “There is nothing I can say, and no sentence that I can pass, that can possibly assuage the enormous impact and grief felt by the family, loved ones and colleagues of Gao Gao.”

She told Reilly: “Tragically it was a life that was cut short on September 21, 2023, as a result of your actions,” and said that the fatal crash followed a “tragic escalation of a pattern of offending involving motor vehicles.”

Reilly pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving at a hearing at Snaresbrook Crown Court last October.

> “It should have been her right to get home safely”: Driver admits causing death of Hackney cyclist

The offence now carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment for offences committed after 28 June 2022, with the change introduced under The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act which received Royal Assent on 28 April that year.

Previously, the longest jail term that could be handed down was 14 years, but even in the most egregious cases, that full term was rarely, if ever, imposed.

In this case, the judge took 16 years as her starting point when determining the sentence, deducting one year for the remorse shown by Reilly and the mitigating issues raised by his lawyer, then reduced it by a further 25 per cent due to his guilty plea.

Besides the jail term handed down to Reilly, who will serve two thirds of it before being released on licence, Judge English also banned him from driving for 17 years and six months.