A PETITION has been launched by the family of Coventry mum Anna Downey, calling for longer prison sentences for dangerous drivers.
Mandy Downey, sister of mum-of-two Anna, is calling on the Government to ensure people who cause death by dangerous driving are behind bars for a long time to deter other careless drivers and to give justice to devastated families.
Social care worker Anna, 42, was tragically killed while returning to her Whitley home from a night out in a black cab, when then 17-year-old driver Danielle Bartlett ploughed into her.
And despite being an unqualified driver with no insurance and twice over the legal limit, Bartlett was sentenced to three years in a young offender’s institution – to serve only half the sentence in custody and the other half on licence.
Danielle Bartlett
Now her family are hoping the petition, which has already garnered more than 1,200 signatures, can change the law and help bring them closure.
“You know that sickening feeling when then phone rings in the middle of the night an you instantly know something is wrong, for our family it was a knock on door,” Mandy said.
Anna had been out in the city with her cousin, Johnny, before hailing a taxi to take her home to her two young daughters and mother, who was baby sitting.
But she never returned home.
Despite the efforts of paramedics, Anna was pronounced dead at the scene from multiple injuries to her head, chest and pelvis.
Describing the following months as a ‘harrowing’ time for the family, Mandy believes they have been let down by ‘unduly lenient’ sentence handed to her sister’s killer.
She added: “Anna was a social care manager, and worked in child protection to help vulnerable families – a job she was most passionate about.
“She worked for the system, lived her life by the system and we feel it is an insult to all what she worked so hard for, with the irony being the defendant themselves had been in the care system.”
“We have appealed to the Attorney General under a unduly lenient sentence.
“We want Anna’s case to stand as a example for other people who cause death by careless driving to not serve such a short prison sentence and prevent other families going through the devastation that we are.
“We hope that by the public supporting this petition we get the justice that Anna deserves.
“By fighting this and achieving some form of justice we hope to show that other families can appeal and if you fight for what is right there can be an outcome of some form of justice and closure.”
Visit www.change.org/p/justice-for-anna-downey-longer-sentence-for-careless-driving to sign the petition.
