Driver gets lengthy term for fatal smash
Jessie Perry
(CNS): Conroy Nairne (33) has received a long prison sentence for causing death by dangerous driving after Justice Marlene Carter handed down a six-year jail term Friday. The George Town man was doing 127 mph behind the wheel of a black Audi when the car crashed and burst into flames on West Bay Road in September 2015. His girlfriend, Jessie Perry (21), received severe burns and died around a week after the smash in which Nairne was also injured.
The judge said this was one of the most serious cases of causing death by dangerous driving because of the excessive speed that Nairne was travelling before the collision. She said Nairne had shown a “flagrant disregard” for road safety as she arrived at an eight-year term for the offence, discounting the full jail time by just 25% for his guilty plea.
The judge said that Nairne, before he was charged, had at first claimed he was travelling at the speed limit and faulty brakes rather than his excessive speed caused the crash, which she said would mean he should not receive the maximum 33% discount available for his admission.
She also ordered that Nairne be banned from driving for five years after he is released from prison.
Despite the death of Perry, Nairne, who has no previous convictions of any kind, has remained extremely close to her family and many of them, along with his own relatives, were in court to hear the judge’s sentencing. The six-year term clearly came as a shock to them as they had appealed to the judge for leniency as he has been the breadwinner for Perry’s child since her death.
Nicholas Dixey, Nairne’s defence attorney, confirmed that he would be appealing the sentence as he believed the court had double counted the aggravating factors in the case to arrive at such a lengthy term.
There have been some widely different sentences coming from the courts in recent times regarding road deaths. This is partially down to decisions by the director of public prosecutions’ office to charge drivers who have caused another person’s death with careless, rather than dangerous, driving, which has a lower sentencing tariff. But it appears other factors are also influencing the courts, leading to very different sentences for sometimes very similar cases.
Former immigration officer Nicholas Tibbetts, who caused the death of Donnie Ray Connor by careless driving in a hit-and-run collision on the Linford Pierson Highway, served only a matter of weeks in jail last year, even though he was originally charged with manslaughter. Then Donovan Kellyman, who admitted causing the death of Marcia Donaldson just a few days after Tibbetts killed Connor, but who did not leave the scene, is currently serving a two-year term because he admitted causing death by dangerous driving.
Judges have stated that each case of death or injury on the roads has to be considered on its own merits. But the discrepancies in sentences are becoming increasingly difficult for the public to understand when legal technicalities and other less clear issues seem to have led to vastly different punishments for those responsible for killing other road users.
Category: Crime
her family need sue him on behalf of her estate? his insurance will pay……civil action….
While the young man has done wrong and has to pay the consequences of his action. I too think along the lines of his defence lawyer. Yes I will say that nothing that anyone can say or do will bring the young lady back to life but at least he was and has been responsible enough to take on and continue providing for the young lady child. Let me ask 1 question. Which one or can anyone say that he or she has not broken the speed limit, either here in Cayman or in another country and because there was no accident or no one was caught that makes it alright? How many of us have children that have been in both situations, either on the side of the young lady or on the side of the young man. I could go one and on but I will say I too have lost family members and friends on the road due to recklessness and or other means but does that mean that those individuals should continue to be punished by society. I do think that deep within the minds of those individuals that they will always remember what they have done and will always regret their actions. I do not know either of the individuals of the accident and I do know how they feel, that is the family of the young lady ( and my sympathy and prayers are with them) and the young man and his family. We need more love in the world rather than hate. God bless everyone.
Breaking the speed limit by 5 or 10 miles an hour is one thing. Doing over TRIPLE the speed limit is totally different thing….
…and doing more FIVE TIMES the speed limit is is something else again.
Well i will say he who is without sin cast the first stone. You know what, all of us are in the same boat. We all have done something or somethings that should have landed us in prison but and i say but we were never caught. Yes it was not my daughter that lost her life through lack of thinking and being responsible. However if you drive a motor vehicle at 5 or 10 miles over the limit and a child or adult runs out or steps out in front of you and you knock that person down and kills them, will the situation be different then because you were ONLY DOING 5 OR 10 MILES OVER THE LIMIT. I quess you would say have mercy or pity on me as i was not speeding. If you are doing 1 mile over the speed limit you have broken the law and an accident could happen no matter the speed. I am not giving right where wrong is. I am also not defending his unthoughtfull and wreckfull choice but he is also someone who acknowledged that he made probably the worst mistake that anyone could ever have made. For a moment stop and think to yourselves, what if this young man was your child. Would you like to see him punished for the rest of his life or would you like for him to do the best he could do for the family that he cause such grief and heart acke to. I think he was trying his best to do just that by providing for the child that he made loose his mother and ensuring a good relationship with her family.
I think he broke Way over the speed limit don’t you???? We are not talking about doing 40 in a 30!!! He drove EXTREMELY recklessly the idiot! She obviously wasn’t your daughter or you’d want his sorry backside locked up and the key thrown away.
Social Services can assist with the child. He needs to serve his time. He killed their mother. She was someone’s child too.
lengthy? Which part of that is lengthy?
We are far too lenient on these speeders and drunks. Hold the caymanians responsible with the maximum charge, and DEPORT THESE UNGRATEFUL LOOSERS – STOP WASTING OUR MONEY ON THEM.
I’d rather we keep the loosers and deport the losers.
Should be 1 year for every mile over the speed limit for the area – Now that would be justice !
At age 33 this man should have known better. I would have been more sympathetic were he a teen whose brain was not fully developed.
But at 33??? When is he going to grow up?
Think about the horror he could have inflicted had he crashed into other people/ cars.
Let this be a lesson to all those who use the road : it is dangerous if you act crazy — and the law will be harsh.
I am all for harsh penalties — hope such penalties will serve as a deterrent.
I think that the point trying to be made by CNS is not that Conroy’s sentence is too long but that Tibbetts and others sentences are too short. Or inconsistent and subjective.
Consider the last name of those involved in these cases.
He lied through his teeth at first and pleaded guilty only because the police could prove what speed he was doing and also that the car did not have faulty brakes.I will never understand why he should have 2 years knocked off his sentence in these circumstances.Eight years is hardly enough for what he did bearing in mind he will get time off his sentence for good behaviour.
A third off for avoiding the costs of a trial – and to try and avoid guilty people getting off on technicalities – is fairly standard. You are entitled to plead innocent all the way to the court door. Judge has reflected his initial lying in reducing the discount. You should be a lot angrier about those cases where the defendant only gets charged with careless driving – this guy at least got 6 years rather than a few weeks.
What’s good for the goose its good for the gander!
I don’t call 6 years for killing someone a long time, remember the girl is gone for a lot longer, in fact for ever.
How in the world could a defense lawyer or anyone expect the Crown to charge the defendant with causing death by ‘careless driving’ ….. and death came about due to traveling 127 MPH on West Bay Road ?
Where the hell did he think he was driving ? Daytona 500 !!
At that speed he could have wiped out a whole family of ten traveling in a wagon or some other large vehicle.
She should have given him ten years in prison and disqualified him for ten years also.
Too many damn idiots driving on our roads today which is going from bad to absolutely worst.
So providing for a child is a reason to give him a lenient sentence? Thinking all screwed up here in Cayman
I sense some sympathy in this story. But 127 MPH? Incredible. And a young lady burned to death. Six years is right. There are no winners in this. But a just sentence.
I can fully understand the sentencing here & trust no appeal is granted. Ask yourselves , is it acceptable on a small island in a tourism area , to be doing 127 mph in a 30/40 mph zone? I’ll grant the 40 mph zone as conditional, as it was only recently reduced to 30 , on the 7 mile strip. Hopefully it well send a message to the other petrol heads out there on our roads who constantly break speed limits & road laws.
It was reduced to 25 not 30
In my humble opinion it doesnt matter whether its 7mile beach or the quite side of north side there is a speed limit no matter where we are. Ppl need to abide by it and pay attention to what we are doing whilst driving. Its just that simple now that young lady is gone and her child will have to grow up without her, does that child deserve to have lost her mother due to this man and his sheer stupidity i dnt think so.
Do the time captain wreckless
Are we able to deport him?