A GRIEVING son has slammed the sentence given to a hit-and-run driver who killed his mother.
Sajjad Anwar was jailed for three years and four months at Bolton Crown Court last week but could be released in half that time — he has already spent three months in custody, which will also be deducted from his sentence.
The 20-year-old, who pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving, drove “irresponsibly and aggressively”, the court was told, when he ploughed into another car in Bell Lane, Bury, in May last year.
Anwar drove on the wrong side of the road, accelerating from 18 miles per hour to 55 miles per hour in a matter of seconds.
He was overtaking a queue of slowly moving traffic in an Audi Quattro, but he smashed into a Vauxhall Corsa, driven by 58-year-old grandmother-of-four Catherine Teeters, from Bury.
Following the sentence, her son David Teeters, aged 37, said: “It’s not enough. He’s taken a life and destroyed my family.
“He could be out in a year-and-a-half. How is that a deterrent for anyone?”
Anwar fled the scene after the collision but later handed himself in to police.
Mrs Teeters’ sister, Diane Baker, aged 46, was also in the car and is still recovering from the accident.
In a statement read to the court, she said: “I love my sister much, but I am shocked at how much anger I have felt towards another person. But I also feel sorry for him in a way.
“He is a young person that did a very stupid thing. Those seconds that followed changed lives forever. Not just my family’s, but his, forever.”
But after the hearing, she also said that the sentence was too lenient.
Judge William Morris said that he was following sentencing guidelines.
He said Anwar would have received five years following trial but he reduced that by one-third because of his guilty plea.
Anwar, of Deeplish Street, Rochdale, will be sentenced on July 7 for a separate offence of conspiracy to steal in Yorkshire.
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