A rideshare driver, Hayadulla Turkmani, who ran over and killed a passenger after the victim was sick inside his vehicle has been sentenced to five years in prison.
Hayadulla Turkmani, 53, mowed down 28-year-old Michael Ashton outside his home in Basildon, Essex, following a heated dispute over a small amount of vomit left on the vehicle’s rear seat.
Ashton, a council worker for Barking and Dagenham, suffered a severe brain injury in the collision and died shortly after being rushed to the hospital.
Court proceedings and jury verdict
Following a trial at Basildon Crown Court, Turkmani was convicted of causing death by dangerous driving. The jury acquitted him of murder and manslaughter charges.
Alongside his five-year custodial sentence, Presiding Judge Samantha Cohen handed Turkmani a seven-and-a-half-year driving ban.
Delivering the sentence, Judge Cohen stated that Turkmani was the primary aggressor in the confrontation and demonstrated a “complete disregard” for the victim’s safety.
“When you arrived at their home, Mr. Ashton’s partner decided to try her best to clear it up—you remained angry. As you drove away, you couldn’t resist an abusive parting shot towards Mr. Ashton,” Judge Cohen noted, adding that while bound by the jury’s finding that Turkmani did not intentionally strike the victim, he should have easily seen Ashton standing in the road.
Disagreements led to fatal escalation
The court heard that Ashton and his partner, Sophie Carroll, were returning home from an evening out when Ashton became ill inside Turkmani’s automatic Toyota Prius.
After arriving at the destination, the couple stepped inside their home to fetch wet wipes to clean the upholstery. Prosecutors argued that Turkmani, harbouring intense anger over the mess, accelerated into Ashton as he stood outside.
In his defence, Turkmani—who fled Afghanistan in 1999—claimed he panicked during the argument and failed to see the six-foot-tall passenger in front of his vehicle.
In her victim impact statement, Carroll expressed deep grief over the loss of her partner, stating that the incident robbed them of their plans to marry and start a family together.
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