A serving detective chief inspector with a history of blackouts who killed a pedestrian after passing out at the wheel has been jailed for three years and seven months.
Michael Cooper was in an unmarked police car when he ploughed into a row of parked vehicles – crushing educational psychologist James Bane between two of them as he stood chatting in the street following a school visit.
Nottingham Crown Court heard the 50-year-old father-of-two suffered serious injuries and died at the scene in Etwall, Derbyshire.
A woman who was also hit by Cooper was badly hurt in the incident in September 2021 and continues to suffer pain and severe psychological effects.
Cooper, 55, who resigned from the police in 2024, had pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving and causing serious injury by dangerous driving. He had previously denied the charges.
During sentencing yesterday, Samuel Skinner KC, prosecuting, said Cooper shouldn’t have been behind the wheel when he killed Mr Bane because he had an ‘unexplained medical history of blackouts that occurred without warning’ for almost 20 years.
Mr Skinner added that 12 years before the crash, Cooper had been warned by a consultant neurologist not to drive and to inform the DVLA about his condition – but failed to do so, or tell his insurance company.
He told the court Cooper was so worried about his blackouts – thought to be caused by a cardiac problem called Stokes-Adams, where the heart suddenly stops beating, or epilepsy – that he admitted to doctors he was concerned about driving, swimming or working up ladders.
Serving detective chief inspector Michael Cooper was in an unmarked police car when he ploughed into a row of parked vehicles
Cooper, 55, who resigned from the police in 2024, had pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving and causing serious injury by dangerous driving
But Mr Skinner said: ‘Despite his concerns and despite instructions from a neurologist, the defendant carried on driving. The defendant courted a dangerous risk every time that he got into the driver’s seat of a vehicle.’
Cooper was also disqualified from driving for five years.
Judge Mr Justice Sweeting said he had shown a ‘callous disregard of the potential danger he posed’, adding: ‘The death of Mr Bane was a wholly avoidable tragedy.’
Mr Skinner said Mr Bane had visited three children at a local primary school, then walked back to his car at around 11.30am.
Cooper, of Etwall, first hit the woman in his unmarked black Peugeot, before his car bounced off the kerb and shunted the two parked cars into one another.
Mr Bane’s wife Catherine described her husband in court as ‘thoughtful, dedicated, respected and greatly missed’, adding: ‘When James was killed, everything I knew was ripped away. The many dreams we had were shattered, and the future I had envisaged was lost.’
She said to Cooper: ‘It is staggering to me you have never demonstrated any contrition, nor reached out to say you are sorry.’
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