A drug dealer caught transporting a "staggering" amount of cocaine from Merseyside to the south coast had killed a pensioner in a road crash seven years earlier.
Jonathan Kenney was jailed for nine years last week after he was caught driving his Renault van down to Devon with seven kilograms of cocaine, worth a street value of £700,000, which a judge described as "off the scale."
The Edge Hill man stashed the haul in a secret "hide" in his van as he tried to make the inside of it look like he was legitimately taking an antique mirror to a buyer.
Kenney, when he was watched by police and filmed making multiple trips down south, had not long started driving again after a four year ban, imposed for killing an 86-year-old pensioner as she was crossing Croxteth Hall Lane on a mobility scooter.
Mona Thornborough died in hospital after being hit by his van, which was travelling at 52mph in a 30mph zone on October 27 2014.
As he was sentenced in September, 2015, it emerged how he had been banned twice before, for speeding and driving under the influence of cocaine and cannabis.
Kenney, now of Wilfer Close, on the border of Wavertree and Edge Hill, had started behind the wheel again after his most recent ban, when he was caught last summer by police who were watching his every move as they tracked a high-level drugs operation linking Liverpool with Devon.
It was one of a handful of trips down to the south coast where he also ran a safe house in Newton Abbot where more drugs were stashed.
At his Liverpool home was a cocaine press and equipment used to wash the Class A drug to turn it into crack.
Last week, at Exeter Crown Court, a barrister referenced his conviction in 2015 for killing Ms Thornborough, for which the then-Everton man admitted causing death by carless driving.
He was then jailed for 14 months.
Kenney’s Ford Transit van struck Mrs Thornborough, who went out to walk her dog at Croxteth Country Park, at around 1pm on October 27.
The pensioner’s dog was attached to her scooter on a lead, but “miraculously survived” the crash.
Ian Criddle, prosecuting, said: “The simple fact is had he been driving at 30mph, had he applied brakes at the same point as he did, the van would have stopped before it collided with Ms Thornborough.
"There would have been no collision and we would not be in court today.”
Passers-by, including an off-duty doctor, helped Mrs Thornborough before she was taken to hospital, where she died three days later from multiple injuries.
Kenney remained at the scene after his passenger called 999 and offered to help, but witnesses said he appeared confused.
One witness said Ms Thornborough did not appear to have stopped to check if it was safe to cross the road.
However, Mr Criddle said Kenney applied his brakes 42m before the crash and investigators found if he had been travelling at 30mph, it would have taken his van just 14 metres to stop.
Kenney was banned from the road for a year for driving under the influence of drugs in 2010.
He was disqualified for a further year in 2013 after accumulating 12 points for offences including speeding on the M57 at 90mph.
He was jailed for 18 months in 2012 for dealing cannabis and possessing cocaine.
In the recent drugs case, it was heard how, Kenney used an EncroChat style phone to contact other members of his gang which police heard ringing almost constantly after his arrest last August.
Payments of £19,000 went through his bank account but police believe that represents only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the scale of his operation.
Judge Timothy Rose told him: "This was a staggering amount of class A drugs. I am tempted to say that in terms of quantity, it was almost off the scale.
"It was in a sophisticated hide in the back of the van.
“You understood the scale of the operation.
"The terrible harm these drugs would have inflicted on local communities is shocking to contemplate.
"It was a truly significant drug dealing operation."
