A drunk driver who killed a 75-year-old grandfather in a “catalogue of carnage” and threatened to set fire to another motorist’s car has been jailed for more than 10 years. James Gill, 39, fractured the skull of Neil Robinson in an unprovoked and random attack after accusing him of “walking on the wrong side of the road” on December 16 last year.
Nottingham Crown Court was told Mr Robinson died in hospital six days after being pushed over by Gill, who was on his lunch break from an electrician’s training course.
Prosecutor Sarah Knight said Gill had driven to Nottingham from Doncaster on December 16 and was drinking from a bottle containing ethanol at the training course while “constantly talking about violence and bigging himself up.”
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She said Mr Robinson was on foot crossing the road near a supermarket when a witness observed Gill getting out of his car and walking briskly. Another witness saw Gill use both hands to push Mr Robinson hard in the chest, causing him to fall backwards and hit his head on the ground in Chilwell, Nottingham, leading to several bone fractures.
Ms Knight said: “In addition to the attack that Mr Robinson sustained, [Gill] embarked on a rampage of violence and aggression.”
Afterwards, Gill stole a bottle of vodka from the nearby supermarket and returned to the training course, where he was asked to leave after being “angry and disruptive”. He was next seen in the Toton area of Nottinghamshire, where he threw a bottle out of his car window which smashed against a wall.
After a female driver asked him to pick up his litter, the court was told Gill responded: “I know littering is wrong but so is arson and I am more than happy to set fire to your car.” Gill then dragged a 68-year-old man out of his car and repeatedly punched him in the face after he too remonstrated with the violent thug.
Judge Stuart Rafferty QC was told that Gill, of Station Road, Arksey, Doncaster, South Yorkshire, was on bail at the time of the killing, having punched two police officers outside a bar in Sheffield five days earlier.
Gill, who had previously had one of his fingers cut off to “enforce” a drug debt nine months before he attacked Mr Robinson, has numerous previous convictions dating back to 2009, including one for robbery in 2012. Through his use of alcohol and cocaine, Gill turned himself into a “chemically induced menace,” according to Judge Rafferty, who passed sentencing on Friday.
Gill admitted several charges including manslaughter, four counts of assaulting an emergency worker, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and drink-driving. The court heard he made no comment to police after his arrest – which saw two more officers attacked – in the Doncaster area, following a collision which left two female motorists with non-serious injuries.
Passing sentence on Friday, Judge Rafferty told Gill: “I hope that, like the rest of us listening to this, you are appalled by the person that you were. Mr Robinson was a 75-year-old, frail, slender man [who] was doing nothing more than trying to cross the road.”
Road rage was an aggravating feature in the killing, the judge added, telling Gill: “Your attitude that day was one of ‘me against the world’. It is not an exaggeration to describe you that day as being a lethal weapon.”
Gill must serve two-thirds of his sentence in custody, and was banned from driving for a period of five years after his eventual release.
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