Mercy for father in 'threats to murder' girl's killer

A judge took pity on tragic father Stanley Cash, who has never forgiven the killer driver who failed to dial 999 to save his daughter’s life.

When Cash was told that driver Andrew Bennett might be released early from his indeterminate life sentence for killing his daughter, he calmly told a probation officer he planned to kill Bennett and his parents.

He said he would track them down wherever they were and then would kill himself, Sheffield Crown Court heard.

When Cash, 52, repeated the threats he was arrested and charged with making threats to kill. At court he denied the charge and was due to stand trial, but after his guilty plea to the lesser offence of harassment was accepted by the prosecution he was freed by a judge who told him: “No one can imagine the grief that you are going through.”

Cash was given a two-year community order with a supervision requirement and an order was made preventing him from having any contact with Bennett, his mother or stepfather.

Kirsty Cash was just 17 when she died in April, 2006 after being flung through the windscreen of a high-powered Subaru Impreza driven by her boyfriend Andrew Bennett, then 20.

Bennett, a banned driver who had never passed a test, bundled her into another car and arranged for her to be taken home. By the time he rang paramedics an hour later it was too late to save her. Medics said with prompt treatment Kirsty would almost certainly have survived.

Bennett was given an indeterminate life sentence with a minimum term of four-and-a-half years in September, 2006 after admitting Kirsty’s manslaughter, perverting the course of justice and driving while disqualified.

His mother Linda, 48, her partner Robin Scholes, 39, and friend Steven Scott, 19, were each jailed for six months for trying to cover up the accident.

Richard Sheldon, prosecuting, said Cash had issued the threats during a course of harassment after “his obvious emotional devastation following the death of his daughter”. It went back to April last year when he received a letter from the authorities saying they were considering allowing Andrew Bennett out of prison on escorted town visits.

He threatened to kill Bennett, his mother and stepfather to a probation officer a week later. Mr Sheldon said: “He said he intended to carry out that plan.” Cash repeated the threats at a second meeting with the probation officer and was arrested in August.

Then in November he went looking for Mr Scholes and showed photographs of Kirsty to neighbours, saying he was thinking of her because it was her birthday.

Peter Pimm, defending, said of Kirsty’s death: “It was an appalling incident. Tragedy is too slight a word for it. It resulted in this man’s life being turned upside down.”

Cash was now depressed, tearful, unable to sleep and had little energy. He had also tried to harm himself.