THE man jailed for running down Swindon army veteran Ken Kiley confessed he was too “cowardly” to admit it was him behind the wheel.

Dario Carboni, jailed yesterday for nine years for the manslaughter of the 75-year-old, had consistently blamed passenger Patrick Cunnington – saying it was him driving the Vauxhall Corsa that struck the him on Southernwood Drive last July. 

'Sickened and ashamed'

But in a letter read to the court by his defence counsel Stephen Kamlish QC, Carboni wrote: “I accept that I was the driver, and I am truly sorry for trying to blame someone else, and not having the courage to admit it was me who was driving.

“I am sickened and ashamed by what happened and by not stopping to help Mr Kiley.

“Every day I think about what happened that day and by the devastating consequences of my actions.”

Mr Kamlish added: “This was a momentary bad and fatal decision, that did not give time for thinking.

“This is a young man who until very recently has lived a decent, honest life. He has truly never done this before.”

Carboni had previously denied murder and causing death by dangerous driving.

But in a shock move yesterday, two weeks into his trial at Bristol Crown Court for murder, Carboni confessed to manslaughter. 

Adam Feest, for the crown prosecution service, noted that at the time of the offence, Carboni was disqualified from driving for six months, and had had his licence revoked by the DVLA.

But he conceded: “It has never been the Crown’s case that Mr Carboni set out that day to do this or to injure anybody.”

Sentencing the Tottenham man to nine years imprisonment, Judge William Hart said: “What makes the death of Kenneth Kiley so poignant is that it was needless.

“Mr Kiley was 75 years old, and he had lived a life worth living. Marion Kiley has lost her husband of almost 50 years. They were everything to each other.

“This incident happened in the space of a moment but I am quite satisfied that you did nothing in the spur of the moment to avoid that collision.”

Judge Hart acknowledged that Carboni has a very limited criminal record. But noting that Londoner Carboni had been in Swindon to sell cannabis, he added:

“You allowed yourself to stray from your honest world to the seedy world of drug supply. You were no main player but you were a recruit.”

He was also sentenced to two months imprisonment for driving whilst disqualified, to be served concurrently.

Carboni was disqualified from driving for eight and a half years and ordered to take an extended version of his driving test.

The blue Vauxhall Corsa he was driving was ordered to be forfeited, along with an undisclosed amount of cash found in the glove compartment.

Judge Hart formally recorded a not guilty verdict to the murder charge earlier yesterday afternoon. 

It followed a 10-day trial that saw the Bristol jury told in shocking detail how Mr Kiley had been run down.

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Shocking death

Jurors heard Mr Kiley had been a passenger in a Toyota Yaris driven by his wife, Marion Kiley, when a Vauxhall Corsa driven by Carboni collided with them on a roundabout near their home in Swindon on the evening of July 8 last year. 

Mr Kiley and his wife had been out for a meal at Toby Carvery on the night of the incident.

Carboni failed to stop and drove away into a cul-de-sac while Mr Kiley got out on foot with a pen and paper in his hand, telling his wife he intended to find the driver of the blue Corsa and take down their details.

Minutes later, at around 8.48pm, Mr Kiley was fatally injured by the car.

Neighbours described hearing a man shouting, followed by “screeching tyres” and then a “loud thud”, before seeing Mr Kiley lying in the road.

They told of finding a folded receipt from Marks & Spencer and a pen on the ground next to Mr Kiley.

Witnesses ran to help the pensioner and he was taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford with injuries including a skull fracture but died the following day.
The Corsa was abandoned in a nearby street where Carboni and friend Patrick Cunnington were seen getting out and running away.

Carboni and Mr Cunnington were apprehended separately by police, with the latter saying he had not been behind the wheel and he and Carboni had been in Swindon selling cannabis.

In a police interview, Carboni denied being the driver of the vehicle when Mr Kiley was injured but accepted being the driver in the initial crash despite not having a licence.

Cunnington was the first of the Corsa’s occupants to be arrested by police.
He told detectives that he had been in Swindon that weekend and had been “up to no good” selling drugs with Carboni.

Cunnington claimed to police that he told Carboni to stop after the first collision.

He said he saw Mr Kiley come out into the road from behind the parked cars, waving his arms around. He told Carboni to stop otherwise he would hit Mr Kiley but he claims that instead of stopping, Carboni put his foot down.

Cunnington said that Carboni continued driving away from the scene before ditching the car. When he asked Carboni why he did not stop, the defendant said that he did not have a licence, Cunnington claimed.

'Blood-curdling scream'

Neighbours described hearing a blood-curdling scream as Carboni drove into Ken Kiley. 

Giving evidence at Carboni’s murder trial, Rachel Whetton and her husband Stephen said they were sitting in their back garden in July last year when they heard a car accelerating, a scream followed by a “massive thud”.

Rachel, who lives on the same road as Mr Kiley and his wife Marion, said: “We couldn’t see the car from our garden, but you could tell by the sound of the engine it was going too fast down the road.

“We could hear the car turn off Southernwood Drive and into Caraway Drive, and then come back and turn back onto Southernwood Drive.

“Probably about 30 seconds later it came back up Southernwood Drive going really fast. We could hear the engine revving.

“That’s when we heard a man shout, and then the most horrendous sound I’ve ever heard in my life.

“It was the sound of something heavy hitting something soft. There was about a second between the shout and the sound of the hitting. My husband instinctively said “someone’s been hit by that car”. He just knew.”

Rachel’s husband Stephen added: “We heard a blood-curdling scream as if something was going to happen, and then a massive thud.

“I ran down to the end of the garden and stood on the wall. I didn’t see the car leaving, but I saw a guy in his 70s, with his head on the curb and his feet out in the road.”

Witnesses described hearing laughter from the Corsa moments before the fatal crash, as the blue Vauxhall sped from the scene of the first prang down cul-de-sac Southernwood Drive.

Realising he had hit a dead end, Carboni was said to have turned back towards Westfield Way.

Mr Kiley then stepped into the road from behind a parked car and was knocked down and killed by the blue Corsa, it was said.

Following the incident, Westfield Way and Southernwood Drive were closed for several hours while crash investigators and police forensics officers scoured the scene. 

On the night of the crash, resident Andy Brown, 25, told the Adver: “There was a lot of blood all over the place.”

Sylvie Kimber ran out to help the stricken pensioner: “We’re not a chatty neighbourhood, but when it came to helping out everybody did their bit.”