Outrage as hit-and-run killer gets only four years in jail

The family of the elderly victim reacted with fury at the sentence handed down yesterday.

Dale Glaister, 19, was driving a stolen van when he knocked down Iris Dixon on a pedestrian crossing.

The widow, 81, was carried on the bonnet for 50ft before Glaister sped away.

Bolton Crown Court heard the teenager was disqualified from driving at the time of the accident in Little Lever and had been travelling at more than 60mph in a 30mph zone.

He had never passed a driving test but had been given three driving disqualifications.

As a result of the collision on May 3, Mrs Dixon was seriously injured and had to have a leg amputated. She died in hospital three days later.

Glaister, of Tonge Moor, Bolton, pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving and driving while disqualified. He also admitted two counts of witness intimidation. The

maximum sentence he could have faced was 14 years. Instead, he was jailed for a total of four years and four months and banned from driving for five years.

Yesterday Mrs Dixon's grandson, Andy Dixon, said: 'He was a disqualified driver who should not have been behind the wheel of a car.

"We are not satisfied with the sentence but whatever he was given it would not have been enough.

"Nothing will bring Iris back and it must have been horrible for her."

Mrs Dixon, whose husband Ronald died in 1990 after 43 years of marriage, had two sons, six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

On the day of the accident, Glaister had taken his boss's Skoda van without consent. He was first involved in a minor collision which damaged another car and a garden wall but failed to stop.

He then drove off around the corner towards the pedestrian crossing.

The traffic lights were on red to traffic and Mrs Dixon had begun to cross the road.

Glaister made no effort to slow down or stop and hit her with such force that the windscreen of the van smashed.

He drove off erratically, mounting the pavement and narrowly missing a woman pushing her eight-monthold daughter in a pram. He then tried to return the van to work stating that three men had smashed the windscreen with a brick but his boss was contacted and informed that the van had been involved in a collision.

Glaister then jumped back into the van and drove off, dumping it nearby.

He later wrote a letter of apology to the Dixon family. It said: "If I could turn back time I would and every day this is on my mind."

Judge Timothy Clayson told him: "You behaved in a most callous and thoughtless manner. You were only interested in yourself."