A 90-year-old driver who knocked over and killed two women has walked free after a judge said it would not act as a deterrent to jail him.
Philip Bull was given a two-year suspended sentence for killing Clare Haslam, 44, and her partner Deborah Clifton, 49. He was also banned from driving for life.
The women, from Chorlton in south Manchester, died after Bull mistook his accelerator for his brake and hit them outside Withington hospital earlier this year.
Friends and family of the two women wept in the public gallery and hurled abuse at Bull during the hearing at Manchester crown court on Tuesday. “I hope your dad lives a long time so he thinks about them every day,” one person shouted at Bull’s son.
The accident happened on 7 March, when Bull was taking his wife to hospital and accidentally accelerated whilst reversing his Ford Focus into a parking space.
The vehicle suddenly spun out of control and ran over Haslam and Clifton, who was crushed to death under the wheels of the vehicle despite members of the public lifting the vehicle off her. Her partner also suffered multiple crash injuries in the impact and died shortly afterwards.
Onlookers said Bull was in a “confused state” in the moments after the impact. He initially did not seem to know what had happened, asking bystanders what he had done.
Bull pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to two counts of causing death by dangerous driving and was said to be “hugely remorseful”.
“I’m quite satisfied you would, if you could, turn back the clock,” the judge, Martin Walsh, told Bull. “You made a genuine but catastrophic mistake. The consequences were unforeseen and completely unintended.”
The judge acknowledged the sentence may be difficult for the family and friends of the victims to accept, but said sending Bull to jail was not in the public interest.
He said: “I ask myself what would an immediate sentence of imprisonment achieve and whether immediate imprisonment would be in the public interest.
“It will not serve as a deterrent to you or to others. It will not put right the harm that has been done. Whilst it would, of course, be a harsh punishment, the fact is that you will live for the rest of your life in the knowledge that your unintended actions on this occasion resulted in the deaths of two people. That is your burden to bear.”
Bull, a retired textiles merchant who served in the armed forces, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to two counts of causing death by dangerous driving.
In a pre-sentence report, he said: “I cannot think of any way worse to come to the end of my life having now ended the lives of others,” Manchester crown court heard.
At the time of the tragedy Bull was fully insured and had renewed his licence, which was clean.
Before the sentencing on Tuesday Bull’s barrister, Richard Vardon, argued that the circumstances of the tragic case were exceptional and could lead the judge to impose a suspended sentence.
For more than a decade the defendant had cared for his wife of 65 years, Audrey, who had a number of health problems including Alzheimer’s disease, he said.
She could not be cared for at home without the defendant and would have to be rehoused, said Vardon.
Following their deaths, the families of Haslam and Clifton said the pair were “made for each other, blissfully happy and, without doubt, soulmates”.
