A mother complained yesterday after the teenage car thief who killed her son had his sentence reduced. Ms Peggy Hanna said outside the Court of Appeal in Belfast: "This gives the message to joyriders that they can go out and kill and they will go free." Patrick Hanna (28) was killed in January last year when he was run over by a stolen car in Belfast. The driver, Gerard Patrick Gaskin (18), from Belfast, did not stop.
Last September he pleaded guilty to causing Mr Hanna's death by dangerous driving and was sentenced to three years in a young offenders' centre and two years' probation. He was also given a consecutive sentence of a year for taking and driving away the car. But yesterday the Appeal Court reduced Gaskin's jail term by a year.