He was 32 years old and leaves a distraught wife and two small children whose lives have been torn apart.

He also leaves us parents, a sister, brother-in-law and nephew who love him beyond words and are all still devastated and struggling to come to terms with it. Matthew was travelling along the A149 at Castle Rising on his Aprilia. Visibility was good, he was not speeding, his light was on and he was in the correct position. This though was not enough to stop a woman pulling directly across his path, leaving him no chance to break and killing him. She only had minor scratches and bruises.

We have maintained a dignified silence during the18 months of legal proceedings and the woman's subsequent Sentencing of 120 hours community service and a 2 year driving ban with no re-test and no driver’s awareness course.

We understand this was an accident. She did not wake up and think I am going to kill someone today, however this woman now believes she is a victim and seems to think this is too harsh a price to pay for our son’s life and appealed for a reduction in her driving ban. It would seem not having a driving licence is an inconvenience to her. She puts so little value on his life that it is too much for her to stay off the road for 24 months. At least after this period she will be mobile again.

We feel this is totally disrespectful to Matthew's memory and adds indescribable insult to injury.

This absolute lack of remorse is beyond belief. Surely the decent thing to do is to accept the punishment given with dignity and give the family some peace to try to gradually rebuild their lives without being dragged to court yet again! You can read more on the Justice for Matthew Thompson facebook page.

The appeal was held on 1st August. After much deliberation, guidance from the judge and two painful adjournments in which to consider her actions after being advised she could possibly incur an increase in her sentence, Mrs. Maureen Haller decided to abandon her self-funded appeal and accept her original punishment of a two year driving ban. She didn’t do the decent thing but just accepted, after two long hours, that she would prefer this to the alternative of being given a harsher punishment.

We have started two independent petitions. One is an e-petition which can be signed by going to http:// epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions and filling out the Matthew Thompson e-petition. You can use your email address twice so if you know anyone who is not on the internet you can register a signature for them. The Govt. will then send you a confirmation email which you must open and click on the purple link otherwise your signature will not be registered. The other is a paper petition which we are hoping to lobby parliament with if we get 100,000 signatures.

We would like to change the law so that anyone found guilty of causing death by driving is given a mandatory loss of licence for a minimum of two years before they can re-sit a test and also have to take a driver’s awareness course as a minimum sentence with other penalties to be given within the legal parameters at the Judge’s discretion.

Thank you for reading this. We really would like to make a difference and stop others suffering as we have.

Sign now