THE killer of PC Jeff Tooley stopped his family donating the officer's organs for transplant when he fled the scene.

Mum Veronica Tooley wanted to give someone else the chance of life, but because convicted robber John Heaton drove away without stopping, permission was refused.

Last night a tearful Mrs Tooley said: "When the doctors asked if they could take Jeffrey's organs for transplant it was such a comfort because he would have been able to save other lives and it was what he would have wanted.

"But we were told that it could not happen because the driver had fled the scene.

"I said if I had the chance I would let the man walk free so his organs could help other people but they said, 'Let's get this man behind bars'."

Yesterday Heaton, 48, of Newmarket Road, Brighton, was jailed for seven years for causing death by dangerous driving. He was also given a concurrent two-year sentence for destroying the van in his bid to escape justice.

After mowing down PC Tooley, when the traffic officer attempted to stop his van at a speed check in Brighton Road, Shoreham, Heaton panicked and drove to Devil's Dyke, where he torched the van.

Heaton, who had been drinking and claimed he fell asleep at the wheel, had denied the charges. But yesterday he changed his pleas to guilty.

Mrs Tooley heard on Wednesday night he was planning to change his pleas and immediately sat down to write a letter to the judge.

In it she described how the family was denied the chance of allowing her son's organs, including his heart and liver, to be donated for transplant operations because callous Heaton had driven off into the night.

She said the police reluctantly had to refuse the request for the organs to be removed because they had not caught the driver and when an arrest was made the defence had the right to see the body and conduct its own post-mortem examination.

The letter never got to court and Mrs Tooley said she was upset Heaton had been sentenced at such short notice when she and her two other sons, Russ, 23, and Chris, 17, had been mentally preparing themselves for a trial in January.

She said: "I know he has done this to get a lighter sentence because he was just thinking of himself again. I wanted to write to the judge and explain what happened that night but he never got to see it.

"I wanted the judge to know that this man not only took my son's life and that of a good police officer but his actions stopped us from saving others."

Russ, who works at Arun Leisure Centre in Bognor, said: "The fact that we could not donate my brother's organs took away the chance of life for all those people waiting for a new heart or liver.

"I don't think you ever get over something like this, but now the court case has finished I suppose it is another chapter out of the way."

Mrs Tooley, who lives in Felpham, near Bognor, and Russ both believe the sentences should have been made consecutive.

She said: "To my mind this is telling people that if you speed and kill someone you might just as well run away and burn your vehicle and hope you are going to get away with it, because

if you are caught the sentences will be the same."

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