Daily Mail
March 8, 2014
The devastated husband of a mother-of-four, who was mowed down as she walked hand-in-hand with her youngest daughter, has slammed the judge who allowed his wife’s killer driver to walk free from court.
Judge Nicholas Woodward said driver Balbinder Dhillon, 39, was suffering from ‘stress’ when he ploughed into 42-year-old Donna Davies in Warrington, Cheshire.
Dhillon, who has since suffered with ‘post accident amnesia’, faced 14 years in jail for the offence – but was handed just 300 hours of unpaid work.
After the sentencing today at Warrington Crown Court, Mrs Davies’ husband Paul, 44, said he was furious with the sentence – and said he had no faith in the criminal justice system.
He said: ‘This just shows how much the British justice system stinks and I have no faith in it whatsoever.
‘It’s like giving him a licence to kill. I was half expecting this guy to be awarded a free ticket to Disneyland.’
Mrs Davies was walking with her child after morris dancing practice on April 25, 2013 when the car being driven by Dhillon veered towards them.
Mrs Davies threw her child out of the way just in time – but took the full force of the crash.
She was catapulted into a nearby garden and died instantly.
In the days before the crash, bankrupt businessman Dhillon had smoked cannabis, taken sleeping tablets and claimed he had blacked out at the wheel of his Audi A4.
Mr Davies, from Warrington, said his ‘happy loving family had gone to nothing but a shell’ since the crash.
He said: ‘It’s a farce when someone who puts a nasty comment on Facebook or Twitter and gets years in jail – yet someone who actually takes somebody else’s life can walk free. There seems to be no logic in it.
‘In fact it sends out a message that people can go out and kill someone and then get away with it by saying they can’t remember doing it.
‘The judge seemed more bothered about the defendant’s life and the devastation it will have on him and his family.
‘Yet all the time I was thinking: ‘what about me?’.’
Dhillon, a former director of a landlord and letting agency, was driving home after picking up his two children from kickboxing when the crash took place.
The car, which was travelling between 31 and 34 mph, suddenly drifted across the road and hit Mrs Davies before ploughing into a stone wall. Mrs Davies’ daughter was uninjured in the collision.
Dhillon, who was treated in hospital after the impact, later claimed he had been under stress due to his wife’s depression and his father’s terminal illness.