Passenger caused fatal motorway crash after pulling handbrake at 70mph during row with ex-partner

‘Control freak with a savage temper’ jailed for more than seven years over crash on way home from Liverpool festival

A “control freak with a savage temper” who caused a fatal accident by pulling the handbrake while on the motorway has been jailed for more than seven years.
Gary Toomey, 37, and his former partner Victoria Bell, 34, were having an argument as they returned from a festival late at night on Sept 24 2021.
Despite the car travelling at 70mph along the M62 near Liverpool, Toomey, who was in the passenger seat, grabbed hold of the handbrake and pulled it up, causing the car to spin out of control and smash into the central reservation.
Ms Bell managed to get free of the wreckage, but was hit and killed by another vehicle.
Toomey, of Hollin Hey Road in Bolton, later told police that a “feeling had come over him”.
He pleaded guilty to manslaughter and on Thursday was sentenced to prison for seven years and four months at Liverpool Crown Court.
The couple had lived together at Ms Bell’s home in Huddersfield before the relationship broke down.
However, they still occasionally saw each other and on the night of the fatal accident were returning from a festival in Liverpool.
Toomey, an HGV driver, told officers that Ms Bell had said she did not want to see him again and that he had begun to shout at her, before pulling up the handbrake.
The Crown Prosecution Service said Toomey had pulled the brake “in temper”, with “tragic ramifications”.
Investigators found that the oncoming vehicle had no time to react to avoid Ms Bell, with poor lighting in the vicinity of the Clock Face Colliery Country Park making it “really hard to see until the last moment”.
In a victim impact statement read out in court, Ms Bell’s mother said: “Your actions have ruined my life forever.”
She described him as a “control freak with a savage temper”.
Toomey was also disqualified from driving.
Det Sgt Kurt Timpson, lead investigating officer from Merseyside Police Serious Collision Investigation Unit, said: “Toomey has destroyed a close family relationship by his shocking behaviour that night.
“Any person travelling at speed in a moving vehicle on a motorway would instinctively know that to pull a handbrake would be highly likely to cause very serious injury or death, to them and other road users. It is simply beyond belief.”
He added: “Merseyside Police will not tolerate any form of domestic abuse or controlling and coercive behaviour.
“We will deal robustly with every report and work with partner agencies to prevent and reduce this type of crime.”