Suzanne Cherry, a company director, beloved mother and stepmother, lived her life by the rules.
She never broke the law and ‘did everything by the book’ her husband Clinton Harrison said after her death.
It was only by a cruel twist of fate that she came into contact with a man who did anything but.
For John McDonald, the cowboy roofer who was fleeing police when he mowed her down in his van, is a career criminal with scores of previous convictions, the Daily Mail can reveal.
On the day of the crash, which left Mrs Cherry with devasting injuries from which she could not recover, he was following a woman called Gill Smith, 71, to a cash machine after tricking her into paying for shoddy roofing work she did not even need.
He had lied to her telling her if she did not have the work done it would cause a lot of trouble for her neighbour. She agreed to go to the bank to take out £2,000 after her card did not work in McDonald’s portable card machine.
McDonald, 52, driving an unregistered grey Nissan van with defective tyres and brakes, along with his son Johnny, 23, and third man Brett Delaney, 35, followed her, no doubt to make sure she took out the money.
It was part of scam which saw the McDonalds net £50,000 – none of which has ever been returned to their victims.
John McDonald pictured in a wanted appeal issued by West Midlands police in 2022 over distraction burglaries where elderly people were targeted
Officers also appealed for information about the whereabouts of his son Johnny, pictured
It was during this trip that they were spotted by police in a marked car, who gave chase after Delaney saw them and turned his head, raising their suspicions. For 12 minutes, the officers pursued the van being driven by McDonald.
In terrifying footage he can be seen crashing into cars, including one carrying an 11-month-old baby.
Reaching speeds of up to 70mph, the chase through the streets of Birmingham saw multiple vehicles damaged by McDonald’s van as he weaved in and out of traffic, drove through red lights and over pavements and tried to ram the police car following him at least eight times before he fled onto the golf course where Mrs Cherry, 62, was playing with her husband.
After the collision all three men fled the scene.
At Worcester Crown Court on Tuesday, McDondald, who lived in local authority housing in Walsall with his wife, was jailed for 13 years and six months after he admitted causing death by dangerous driving.
He also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud in relation to the roofing scam, along with his son and Delaney.
The court heard McDonald had nine previous convictions for 14 offences. It can now be revealed that in 2019, he was jailed for six years after he stole thousands of pounds from an 85-year-old woman and her daughter, 62, who was terminally ill with cancer, after posing as an odd job man.
He also tricked a man, 86, into handing over £450 by claiming to have been sent to smarten up his garden.
McDonald, now 52, in his mugshot issued by Staffordshire police this week after he was jailed
