A former policeman who killed a grandmother during a "joyride" as he used his patrol car to deliver a birthday card has been jailed for six-and-a-half years.
Malcolm Searles, 24, was in a marked patrol car with his blue lights flashing and siren sounding as he repeatedly broke the speed limit.
Sentencing, Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC said Searles' driving had been described as "a hair-raising joyride".
He told Searles: "You must have known for considerable stretches that at times you were placing members of the public, including the occupants of your own car, at serious risk of either being killed or injured."
Searles abused his "privileged position" by driving the car with sirens blaring simply as "a cover for racing along the streets", the judge said.
The former Met Officer took the patrol car on four journeys in one evening in August last year during which he repeatedly broke the speed limit. One was to a party at his parents' house to deliver an 18th birthday card to his sister. His station inspector gave him permission to go on "welfare grounds". Searles also gave his father and uncle an illegal display of his high-speed driving skills, at one point doing 104mph in a 40mph limit area. London's Southwark Crown Court heard many of the roads he sped through were "densely populated" housing estates.
Finally, after a "prolonged course of dangerous driving lasting over an hour" and covering a total of 22 miles, he ploughed into 61-year-old pedestrian Sandra Simpson - known as Sandy.
Judge Rivlin went on: "Mrs Simpson's daughter in her impact statement said she finds it unbearably difficult to live with the fact you were not answering an emergency. She said, and I quote, 'It was like he was driving dangerously deliberately because he knew he could get away with it.' I believe she has articulated what you were doing perfectly."
The judge said another aggravating feature of the case was that the former policeman falsely told investigators he had been chasing a stolen car at the time.
Searles, from North View, Swanley, Kent, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to one count of causing death by dangerous driving, one count of dangerous driving, and two counts of speeding on August 24 last year. He was also disqualified from driving for six years.
