A HERO who chased the killer driver of Coventry brothers Corey and Casper Platt-May has won a bravery award.
Maintenance worker Adrian Henefer, 53, from Cradley Heath in Sandwell, tracked the two suspects, Robert Brown and Gwendoline Harrison, after the horrific crash in Longfellow Road, Coventry, last February – eventually enabling their arrest.
Mr Henefer is to receive a silver medal at the Police Public Bravery Awards in London later this year.
He was also recognised with a West Midlands Police Chief Constable’s Good Citizen Award.
Mr Henefer was fixing a bus stop on Longfellow Road when Brown’s Ford Focus hit Corey and Casper, aged six and two respectively, as they were on their way to the park with their mother and two brothers.
Brown failed to stop and carried on, narrowly avoiding another car before stalling.
Mr Henefer had seen the crash and immediately ran to the car and wrestled the keys from the Brown as he attempted to restart it.
Brown and his passenger, Harrison, made off on foot, but Mr Henefer’s heroics didn’t stop there.
He tried to detain Brown who began punching him, while Harrison swung a carrier bag filled with beer cans at him.
After momentarily letting go, he chased again and as the pair tried to scale a metal fence, he pulled Brown back down.
It was only when Brown began searching for a weapon on the ground that Mr Henefer was finally forced to back off.
But he kept track of the pair and guided police officers to an alleyway where they were attempting to hide.
During court proceedings the judge thanked Mr Henefer personally for his actions describing him as a man of ‘great courage and fortitude’.
Brown, 53, of Attwood Crescent, Wyken, was sentenced to nine years – later raised to ten-and-a-half years – at Warwick Crown Court in April for causing the boys’ deaths – after pleading guilty.
Tests later revealed Brown to have exceeded the legal threshold for driving with cocaine in his system by more than nine times.
Harrison, 42, of Triumph Close, Wyken, admitted to a charge of assault and was sentenced to six months in jail.
But she was released last July after serving only weeks in prison, prompting further outcry about the leniency of the sentences the pair received.
Brown was found dead in his prison cell last December.
