Killer driver Denis Moore escapes jail

May 9 2009 by Neil McKay, The Journal

A MOTORIST who had driven for eight years without ever passing a test escaped jail after killing a cyclist.

Denis Moore, 50, regularly drove his partner’s Hyundai Matrix mobility car despite only holding a provisional licence.

Durham Crown Court was told yesterday how he was behind the wheel when he collided with cyclist James Jorgensen at 6pm on September 24 last year.

Mr Jorgensen, 55, of East Shore Village, Seaham, County Durham, was riding round a roundabout near his home when Moore’s car hit him.

He was flung to the ground and died eight days later of severe head injuries.

But Moore, 50, of Byron Terrace, Houghton-le-Spring, near Sunderland, escaped jail after the court was told Mr Jorgensen had not been wearing a safety helmet.

Moore, who became the first defendant at Durham Crown Court to admit the relatively new charge of causing death by careless driving, was told by Judge Richard Lowden that Mr Jorgensen’s failure to wear a helmet was a “mitigating factor”.

The judge added: “No sentence I can pass can equate or is intended to equate to the worth of Mr Jorgensen’s life.”

The court was told Moore was driving at no more than 20 miles per hour when he struck the cyclist on the B1287 road at Seaham.

Ron Mitchell, representing Moore, said his client had suffered from a “momentary lapse of concentration”.