In Support of RoadPeace Challenge Action Week

When 20-year-old Amy Cooper was killed by a disqualified driver, her sister Sam’s world shattered. But the heartbreak didn’t end there. What followed was a painful and exhausting journey through a justice system that too often fails victims’ families. This is Sam’s powerful account of loss, injustice, and an unwavering fight for accountability.

Navigating the Justice System

When someone you love is killed in a traumatic, violent way on the road, you are put through unimaginable pain. Pain you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. You get a knock on the door, or you watch as your loved one slips away in hospital, and it’s like your life ends at that moment. Which is what happened in November 2022, after a disqualified driver performed a dangerous overtake in terrible road conditions and hit Amy Cooper on her motorbike head on, then callously left her to die. That night, I found myself sitting next to my 20 year old little sister Amy’s bed in the ICU at Peterborough Hospital with our family, and we watched her die. 

Suddenly, I was a big sister without a little sister, facing the reality of a life without her.

And then we have had to relive the crash and her death over and over again, as we have been dragged through the ‘justice’ system. I write it like that because, for anyone who has experienced the system, it feels like there’s absolutely no justice about it.

We have unfortunately been through multiple different stages of the system. Thankfully, the driver pleaded guilty, so we were spared the pain of a trial. However, the sentencing hearing was still an exceptionally painful experience. We had to listen in silence to details about the crash and what had happened to Amy, along with the driver’s cowardly actions in the aftermath. We had to hear the defence try to argue for a greatly lower sentence – down from Level A, which is the highest, to Level C, the lowest, which (at the time) had a starting point of 2 years in custody. Arguments around just how far the driver was into the opposite carriageway when he smashed into my sister’s bike. That it was a momentary decision and thus the sentence shouldn’t be too harsh. It was an intimidating and exhausting experience.

The driver was convicted within a very short timeframe – 2.5 months from the crash to the sentencing, because the driver was a flight risk and thus remanded in custody. The driver received a relatively long sentence – 8 years and 3 months. Some people would see this as lucky because they never get to court, or have to wait much longer to do so, and my heart goes out to them. But I don’t feel lucky. This also takes us back to the justice question – where is the justice in 8 years for killing a 20 year old with her whole life ahead of her? In terms of a custodial sentence there has been an element of justice, but truthfully, I don’t feel justice has been achieved.

Sentence Appeal

Our journey through the justice system was not over though. Just a few weeks later we were notified that the driver was appealing his sentence on the grounds that it was “manifestly excessive”. It was, in essence, an administrative loophole as our case was tried between changes in the law, and thus the sentencing guidelines were going through change, so the judge for our case used a very recent previous case to make a decision on the length of sentencing.

There is no obligation to attend an appeal hearing, but we felt we had to attend as we did not want to appear like we didn’t care. We wanted to show our faces and show the judge, the barristers and indeed the perpetrator the very real pain we were being dragged through. Though he was able to appear by video link, unable to see us. But we had to look at him. So, in October 2023, 11 months after Amy was killed, we found ourselves in the Court of Appeal in central London.

The entire exercise was a performative nightmare. We had to once again sit through a long and harrowing recap of the events of the night that Amy was killed. The barristers representing either side presented their arguments, with the barrister for the driver arguing that our case should never have been ‘bumped up’ into Level A; that it was a Level B case. The panel of judges disagreed and, after hearing all the evidence, went into another room to ‘confer’. They then came back after a few minutes and read out a statement that lasted around 25 minutes, only giving us their decision at the very end. 

It was a painful and exhausting day, and it was all for show – the case had already been reviewed and the judges had already made their decision. The emotional toll on our family was unbearable, and it’s hard to imagine just how much money it must cost to run such a farcical event.

Serious Further Offences Review

While we were relieved that the decision was made to reject the appeal, our relief was short lived. Next came the Serious Further Offences (SFO) review and report from the Probation Service. An SFO is triggered any time an offender on licence commits certain serious offences, including causing death by dangerous driving.

We knew that the driver was on licence at the time of the crash, so we knew to expect errors on the part of the Probation Service. What we were not prepared for was the sheer scale of mistakes and failures that were laid bare in a convoluted 76 page report.

There were multiple occasions where recall should have been considered due to his behaviour in the two years between his release from prison and killing Amy. From an arrest and conviction for driving under the influence of drugs, to evidence of associating with his co-accused and multiple absences from his mandatory meetings with his probation officers, the evidence that he should have been recalled multiple times is stark. And yet it was not even considered. In the SFO report, there are at least 6 occasions in 2 years that the offender’s behaviour posed enough risk that recall should have been at least considered. Furthermore, of the 11 licence conditions that the offender had, he broke at least 7 of them in those 2 years.

An administrative error meant that the offender’s Risk of Serious Harm (RoSH) level was set at Medium, when it should have been High on release. Moreover, one particular supervising probation officer’s aversion to recall meant that probation officers felt it was pointless to suggest someone on licence showing blatant disregard for their licence conditions should be considered for recall.

One key and, for our family, devastating issue highlighted throughout the SFO report is that multiple probation officers were fully aware that the offender was driving illegally during his licence period, but did not see this as an issue that presented a risk to the public. With the horrendous statistics of an average of 5 people killed per day on the UK’s roads, this attitude is horrifying.

We have tried so many different avenues over the past few months to try and gain reassurances that practice has improved, and keep hitting brick walls. We requested that the Coroner open a new inquest into Amy’s death in the light of the SFO report, with the hope that it would result in a Prevention of Further Deaths report, to ensure practices within the Probation Service are improved. It is clear throughout the report that, had the probation service conducted itself correctly in its supervision of the offender, he would not have been on the road that night. The Coroner unfortunately declined, stating that the offender’s driving behaviour did not constitute a high risk. This brings into question why we have laws around conduct on the road at all – if a person’s dangerous driving is not considered a high enough risk until someone is killed, what’s the point?

We also wrote to the Probation Service, looking for an apology and recognition that the attitude within the service toward the risks posed by illegal driving is improving with better training. We received an apology, and a bland statement about how current training practices around driving risks have been reviewed – and no change needed. This is demonstrably untrue, and my sister had to pay the price.

Final Thoughts

It’s hard to know how to conclude something like this. Our experience with the justice system over the past few years has been traumatic, painful, and utterly devastating. Each time we felt like it might be over, something new cropped up and we had to face a whole new wave of pain.

I do not feel justice has been achieved at all. From the sentencing hearing experiences and the length of the sentence to the refusal to make any changes to how the Probation Service views dangerous driving, there’s little hope that things will improve going forward. More innocent people will lose their lives on our roads, as they do every day. They will be let down by a system that is supposed to be there for them. And their families will be dragged through different facets of a system that continues to let down victims of death by dangerous and careless driving. RoadPeace’s work is vital to push for much-needed changes to the system, because at the moment it does not serve victims well.

Our family did not deserve to be put through all of the extra pain. Nor do the hundreds of families each year who experience some or all of the same things.

I have had many people comment things like “how do you keep going?” and “I don’t know where you find the strength?” – truthfully, I’m exhausted. But I am still a big sister. And as a big sister, I have to keep fighting for my little sister. There may have been a large age gap between us, but we were so close. My life imploded the day she was killed, and there is a hole in my heart that will never be healed. She deserved so much better and I will not be silenced – and I will not let these injustices within the justice system go quietly.

Sam Pointon

Updated on: 17 May 2025