
A man who abandoned another man and left him to die after crashing his car following a pursuit has been jailed.
31 Year Old Mark McCormack, of no fixed address has been sentenced at Minshull Street Crown Court, to six years in prison after pleading guilty to causing the death of 21 year old Declan Blackurne, by dangerous driving. He will also be disqualified from driving for eight years.
In the early of hours of Thursday 24 November 2016, an officer in an unmarked police car spotted McCormack driving a Honda Civic at speed on BirdHall Lane, in Cheadle Heath and began to follow him. McCormack lost control of his car, flipping off the carriageway at the offside and hitting a lamp post, telephone junction box and a wooden telegraph pole at such speed that all were broken in to halves. As the car came to a stop he jumped out of the car and ran away, leaving Declan Blackburne in the car with unsurvivable injuries. He was taken to hospital and sadly died on Tuesday 6 December 2016.
Sergeant Mark Thomas of GMP’s Serious Collision Investigation Unit said: “This was a completely avoidable incident which resulted in the death of a man, leaving his family devastated. There is no excuse for driving dangerously and Mark McCormack will have to live with the fact that his stupidity caused a man’s death.”