{"id":404577,"date":"2026-01-13T12:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T12:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/404577\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T12:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T12:50:10","slug":"man-jailed-for-killing-suzanne-cherry-in-staffordshire-golf-course-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/404577\/","title":{"rendered":"Man jailed for killing Suzanne Cherry in Staffordshire golf course crash"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shannen HeadleyWest Midlands<\/p>\n

\"FamilyFamily<\/p>\n

Suzanne Cherry died four days after she was hit by the van at Aston Wood Golf Club in Staffordshire<\/p>\n

A man who drove his van into a woman on a golf course after being pursued by police has been jailed for 13 years and six months.<\/p>\n

Suzanne Cherry died in hospital in April, four days after she was hit at Aston Wood Golf Club in Staffordshire. <\/p>\n

John McDonald 52, of Booth Street in Bloxwich, West Midlands, admitted causing death by dangerous driving at Worcester Crown Court on Monday.<\/p>\n

The 52-year-old along with two other men were involved in a roofing fraud at the time, the court heard, when their van was spotted by police and pursued on to the course where Cherry was playing with her husband.<\/p>\n

Co-defendants Johnny McDonald, 23, of Molyneux Road, Dudley, and Brett Delaney, 35, of Michael Road, Darlaston, were also jailed – Johnny McDonald for 32 months, Delaney for 28 months.<\/p>\n

All three men pleaded guilty on Monday to a charge each of conspiracy to commit fraud between 17 February and 12 April last year, by making false representations that roofing work was needed when it was not.<\/p>\n

All three men had previously denied manslaughter charges last year.<\/p>\n

John McDonald’s sentence was reduced from 18 years for his two offences after his guilty pleas were taken into consideration, the court heard.<\/p>\n

Cherry’s husband Clint Harrison said on Monday that his wife’s death had left him without a future to look forward to and he only had “an empty present to survive”.<\/p>\n

He said his “beautiful wife” had an “amazing and infectious zest for life” before their “future together was snatched away in an instant”.<\/p>\n

\"StaffordshireStaffordshire Police<\/p>\n

John McDonald (left), Brett Delnaney (middle) and Johnny McDonald appeared at Worcester Crown Court on Tuesday for sentencing <\/p>\n

The court heard on Monday that the trio “were involved in a fraud on elderly householders”, charging “exorbitant amounts” for carrying out bad roof repairs.<\/p>\n

On 11 April, a police officer in a marked vehicle saw them “by chance” and began to follow them after one of them turned their head away after noticing her – leading to the police pursuit. <\/p>\n

Prosecutor Michael Burrows KC said the van drove off at high speed, on the wrong side of the road and was even used to ram the police car.<\/p>\n

John McDonald then drove the van into the golf club and on to the first fairway with police stopping their pursuit when the van came off the road.<\/p>\n

Burrows said Cherry was playing golf with her husband and had been looking for a ball near a stream when she was hit by the van.<\/p>\n

“[Her husband] shouted to her but there was no time for her to react. The van crashed into her, causing her fatal injuries,” he added.<\/p>\n

“The van came to a halt and the three defendants quickly got out and ran off together. Clint Harrison shouted after them: ‘You’ve killed my wife!’.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shannen HeadleyWest Midlands Family Suzanne Cherry died four days after she was hit by the van at Aston…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-404577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}