26-Year-Old Fitness Trainer Runs Over Aspiring Footballer Three Times After Neglecting to Defrost Her Windscreen

A FITNESS instructor ran over a footballer three times after not defrosting her windscreen, and then branded him a “smackhead” while he lay dying under her car.

Megan Murphy, 26, was driving the wrong way down a one way street when she hit Darryl Tomlinson, 31, who was lying slumped in the road.

Megan Murphy repeatedly ran over a drunken man with her car as he was slumped in the street Credit: Cavendish Daryl Tomlinson died only 500 yards from where he lived Credit: Cavendish

She then lied to and told them she had been reversing down the street and trying to de-ice the windscreen of her DS3.

Police later seized her phone and found a message from a friend saying: ”Make sure ur windows are defrosted or have some vision out of it and u won’t get f**ked because he was already on the floor and in the way.

”If he is a crackhead that explains that.”

At Bolton Crown Court, Murphy, who runs a fitness coaching class near her home at Ince, near Wigan, admitted causing death by dangerous driving.

Murphy dismissed Mr Tomlinson as a “crackhead” after she hit him Credit: Cavendish The court heard she had been notorious in the neighbourhood for driving the wrong way down Pembroke Road Credit: Cavendish

Previously the court heard how Murphy had been notorious in the neighbourhood for driving the wrong way down Pembroke Road, in Hindley Green, Wigan to avoid having to go through a nearby housing estate.

Mr Tomlinson who lived just 500 yards away died at the roadside from crush injuries despite efforts to save him.

He had slipped over on his way home from drinking with friends and in a tragic twist of fate a neighbour had already called 999 one hour before, but neither police or the ambulance responded to the SOS call.

An is currently underway into the emergency services blunder.

Tragedy struck at 6am on January 9 last year when Mr Tomlinson who had been partying with friends decided to walk home at 4am and it is thought he slipped on ice and fell into the road.

Rob Hall prosecuting said: “CCTV cameras recorded vehicles driving around him at 4:30am and then reversing to avoid driving around him at 4:49am.

“A neighbour who saw Darryl Tomlinson lying in the road assessed him as incoherent and unresponsive and asked his partner to call for an ambulance, which she duly did at 5:05am.

“At 5:13am, NWAS notified GMP but in an awful twist of fate, sadly, neither NWAS nor police could find the patient and never attended the scene as a result of the initial call.

Murphy said as she was reversing, she felt a bump and thought that she had driven up a kerb Credit: Cavendish Megan Murphy will be sentenced later today Credit: Cavendish

“Clearly if they had, they might have prevented the events that followed and, as a result, their non-attendance is under investigation.”

The court heard as neighbours waited in vain for emergency services to arrive a local taxi driver blocked the entrance to the road to stop traffic entering in a bid to keep Mr Tomlinson safe.

But he did not anticipate that Murphy would be driving the wrong way along the street from the opposite direction.

Mr Hall added: ”At 5:44am, Megan Murphy came out to her Citroen DS3 which was parked down a rear access lane as usual.

”CCTV cameras recorded what looked like only seconds of an attempt to clear the front windscreen of ice.

“This was woefully inadequate and so, when she reversed the car out of the rear access lane, she had practically no outward visibility from the driver’s seat.

”She then drove forward and stops, fully illuminating Darryl Tomlinson in her headlights immediately in front of her car.

”But as if to prove just how poor her forward visibility was, the defendant then drove over Darryl Tomlinson, with him being run over by her front offside wheel, despite a neighbour running towards her trying to warn her and the taxi driver honking his horn.

”Murphy then reversed, again running over Darryl Tomlinson and then drove forward again, once again running him over and putting the car’s bottom panel across his torso and restricting his ability to breathe.

”In the immediate aftermath, Megan Murphy admitted to the taxi driver:

“‘I didn’t see him’ but sadly, thereafter, she decided to deliberately lie about what had happened to avoid responsibility.

”In a 999 call that followed, she was overheard saying she was planning to drive the correct way which the taxi driver was then heard to challenge, such was the local knowledge of her habit.

“Three minutes after the collision, she walked away from the scene and made a phone call in which she twice claimed, dishonestly, that she had reversed over Darryl Tomlinson and pejoratively calling him a “smackhead” whilst he lay trapped under her car.

”Whilst Darryl Tomlinson is still under her car, she obtained something from within and used it to try to remove ice from the front windscreen to create the impression that she had good forward visibility.”

Emergency Services arrive at 6am and were able pull Mr Tomlinson from underneath the vehicle using a jack but he died 20 minutes later.

In a conversation at the roadside with a policewoman Murphy falsely claimed that she had de-iced her car before setting off and had reversed out to drive the correct way up Pembroke Road.

She said as she was reversing, she felt a bump and thought that she had driven up a kerb.

But police were suspicious of her account and noted her windscreen was heavily iced over, with only a small section partially cleared.

When formally quizzed she gave no comment in police interview.

In a statement Mr Tomlinson’s mother Michelle said: “He would do anything for anybody. He loved football from being able to walk. From playing it to watching it, he knew everything about the game.

“If Megan Murphy had seen him or if the ambulance had done their job properly, then Darryl would still be here. I do feel the ambulance contributed to his death, but Megan Murphy was the one who took his life.”

”Since the day I lost my son, it changed all our lives. It was the worst day of my life.”

The victim’s father Tommy Tomlinson said: “I have had many sleepless nights thinking about what he suffered. I wake up having these nightmares and feel like giving up on life.

“Sixteen months on, and my emotions are still the same as they were on that day. Nothing can make me understand why he wasn’t safe. I hold the ambulance service accountable for not finding him – but I hold the girl accountable for taking his life.

“He was not only my son but my working colleague and friend – I think about him every single day. The day I lost Darryl was the day I lost half of me.”

The North West Ambulance Service said: “We are sorry for the mistakes made in the management of the 999 calls received for Darryl, and we deeply regret the shortcomings in our response.

“We have been open with Darryl’s family throughout and are committed to taking action following what happened, to reduce the risk of this happening again.”

Murphy will be sentenced later today.