A driver who inhaled laughing gas before killing an elderly cyclist at a pedestrian crossing has been locked up for more than 11 years.
Cain Byrne, 20, who had never held a driving licence, mowed down 81-year-old Graham Slinn at 80mph after ignoring a red light.
The pensioner, a former builder, was thrown at least 15ft into the air by Byrne’s Volkswagen Golf as he wheeled his bicycle across the A57 near Todwick, South Yorkshire.
CCTV showed that Byrne was inhaling nitrous oxide from a yellow balloon while driving – including moments before and after the fatal collision on April 4.
Sheffield Crown Court heard he made no attempt to stop after hitting Mr Slinn, who had dismounted his bike and was crossing the road.
Byrne, of Chesterfield, Derbyshire, fled the scene as dashcam footage showed his tyres smoking while trying to control the car.
Mr Slinn, who helped care for adults with learning disabilities after he retired, was just weeks away from celebrating his 60th wedding anniversary with wife Jacqueline.
Sentencing Byrne to 11 years and six months in a young offenders’ institution, Judge Jeremy Richardson said inhaling nitrous oxide while driving was ‘an exceptionally dangerous act’.
Cain Byrne was caught on CCTV inhaling nitrous oxide behind the wheel both before and after killing a pensioner at a crossing
Cain Byrne, 20 (left), was sentenced to 11 years and 6 months. Graham Slinn, 81 (right), was mowed down at 80mph
Cain had never had a driving licence but has a list of driving convictions
CCTV and dashcam footage showed him speeding away from the scene
‘You are a dangerous offender and the public must be protected from your evident dangerous and ingrained criminal behaviour,’ he told him.
He said Mr Slinn was ‘crossing the road entirely lawfully, in accordance with the green light for him’ and had died of injuries inflicted by Byrne’s ‘truly appalling driving’.
The judge said Byrne had ‘endured a dreadful upbringing’ and ‘had known very few boundaries’ in his life.
Byrne, who admitted causing death by dangerous driving and other offences, had 27 previous convictions – including for dangerous driving – despite having no licence.
He was due to be sentenced last month, but the judge ordered a probation report after hearing about his ‘astonishing and appalling’ record.
Rebecca Stephens, defending, claimed Byrne believed he had only clipped another vehicle with his wing mirror and panicked.
A montage of footage shown in court captured Byrne inhaling gas multiple times during his drive.
He was banned from driving for 17 years and eight months, and must serve an extended licence period of five years.
Mr Slinn’s widow Jacqueline told a previous hearing: ‘Sixty years of marriage, almost, wiped out by the defendant.’
She said they met through a shared love of cycling and that her husband rode his bike several times a week and sang in pubs and clubs around Sheffield.
After the sentencing, their children Nicola and Victor described him as ‘kind to his core’ and said his death was ‘100% avoidable’.
‘On the afternoon of April 4, our dad set out on his bike – something he had loved since his youth, when he used to race,’ they said.
‘Despite taking every possible precaution to stay safe – dismounting at the end of the cycle path, waiting for the lights to change to green for pedestrians, and wheeling his bike across the pedestrian crossing – on the day he died, he was hit at speed by a car driven by someone who just kept going, as if our dad wasn’t even there, as if he was nothing.
‘But he was there. He was everything to us. He was our dad, our mum’s husband of 60 years, a granddad to two teenage girls, and a friend to so many.’
In a statement released through Thompsons Solicitors, the family said his death had left a ‘profound silence at the heart of their home’.
‘To lose any loved one is a shock,’ they said. ‘But to lose someone so vibrant, so active, and to know their death was 100% avoidable is doubly cruel.’
