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Mon 28 Jan, 1:00 pm UTC

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Killer driver sues cyclist victim's family

By Rosee Woodland

A speeding driver who hit and killed a teenage cyclist is suing the boy’s family for the damage to his car.

According to reports in Spanish newspaper, El Pais, businessman Tomas Delgado is seeking almost £20,000 to cover the cost of the damage to his luxury Audi A8.

Delgado was driving at 100mph in a 55mph zone when he hit 17-year-old Enaitz Iriondo.

But he faced no criminal charges over the incident because a judge ruled both parties were to blame.

Iriondo was not wearing a helmet or reflective clothing when he was killed and was hit when he rode through a Give Way junction.

Now Delgado wants 20,000 Euros (£14,830) for the cost of the damage Iriondo’s body did to his car when he hit it. And another 6,000 Euros (£4,450) to cover the cost of hiring a rental while his own car was being repaired.

Following the fatal accident in the La Rioja region of Spain, Iriondo’s family were paid 33,000 Euros (£24,479) in compensation by Delgado’s insurance company, which acknowledged his speeding could have helped cause the accident.

Until the lawsuit, the boy’s parents said they had pitied Delgado, feeling sorry for the guilt they assumed he felt over the accident.

But Delgado told El Pais: "I'm also a victim in all of this, you can't fix the lad's problems, but you can fix mine.”

The boy’s mother, Rosa Trinidad said: "This was the final straw, a kick in the teeth.”

His father said: "The driver's negligence was the cause of death. If he'd been travelling a bit slower, he'd have had time to brake.”

A ruling on the lawsuit is expected on Wednesday, (January 30).

User Comments

There are 16 comments on this post

Showing 1 - 16 of 16 comments

  • This is wrong very wrong. The driver accidently killed a cyclist and he is sueing the family? Whats happening to this world.

    Yeah I know that the boy is wrong but he is much in the wrong side in the first place. Driving at almost double the speed limit is already showing you are a reckless driver and even if the cyclist wear protective gears he will still die if got hit by a 100mph car, not to mention that at a 110mph speed, the driver wont be able to concentrate on the surrounding properly. He is the one to be blamed and to have his car license revoked for careless driving. He is just lucky not to be in jail.

    And its absurd that he ask the family to pay for his damaged car and his rental. The rental totally pissed me off, I mean what kind of heartless person this is, its his car that killed a person and he ask the victims family to pay for the damage and for his car rental?

    I hope that the victim family got themselves a good lawyer and win agains this heartless guy.

  • This has to be a blinking joke!!!???????

    "Rode through a give way junction" ? You give way at them. If this idiot had been driving to the speed limit, there wouldnt have been any vehicle to give way to as he would have been miles down the road and the poor cyclist would have cleared the road in plently of time before the car got there!!

    How does that bloke sleep at night!

  • It was a give way sign.The lad probably thought he had time to get out,he was not to blame when the Driver is breaking the speed limit and the Law.This is a bloody Joke!

  • I hope that one day he's walking across a barricaded road and gets run over by a TDF peloton. Or, he's driving blissfully down the street with a smirk on his face and gets flatten by a BA plane engine just dropped from the sky.

  • Thats hideous.

    As the others have said - kid probably saw the car miles away - and he would have been fine if the driver hadnt been doing over the ton. Sickening.

  • 100MPH is 44 metres per second... he could easily have been out of sight when the cyclist checked.

  • When a vehicle is going twice as fast as it should be, you have Buckley's chance of estimating where you should be on the road.

  • If El Caudillo were alive this nice chap would be in serious trouble. Anyone who drives at 100mph in a 55mph zone and kills someone should go to jail.

  • Does anyone know what the outcome of this was?

  • I love the mention of a helmet. It'd be equally useful to a skydiver's helmet when his parachute doesn't work.

  • SICK!!

    The judge needs to re-assess his values! If the guy was wearing helmet and reflective clothing, would the driver have managed to slow down enough to not be a danger to anybody close by... I think not!

    I'll donate to help the family win the case!

  • This is ridiculus, this guy is not dead cause he was not wearing a helmet, he is dead because he was hit by a speeding driver!! End of story

  • Dropped the case apparently.....

    On Wednesday, Delgado’s lawyer announced that his client decided to ditch the case because of media pressure, Spanish National Radio reported. He spoke outside the court in the small town of Haro in northern Spain to a crowd of several hundred people.

    “We’re very happy,” said Anton Iriondo, father of the cyclist.

  • re: dropping this case...there is hope for the human race afterall!

    To even consider taking such action, let alone actually going through with it, just leaves you speechless!! When the guy stated "you can't fix the lad's problems, but you can fix mine" it was sheer understatement - perhaps the death penalty would make everything 'fair' then??

  • Clearly the judge is on the take or has had half his brain surgically removed. One look at Tommy boy and it's obvious what kind of dog waste we're dealing with, but the judge...it's sent idiotmeter off the scale!!!

  • This whole affair is ludicrous. If Delgado was driving with due care and attention he probably wouldn't have hit the boy in the first place. Hes a total scumbag.

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