A 53-year-old Uber driver in the United Kingdom has been jailed for five years for causing the death of a passenger he ran over following an argument after the passenger vomited in his car.
Hayadulla Turkmani was convicted of causing death by dangerous driving at Basildon Crown Court on Wednesday over the death of Michael Ashton, 28, who died eight days after the incident.
According to the BBC, the court heard that Turkmani picked up Ashton and his partner, Sophie Carroll, in Hornchurch, east London, on September 26, 2025, after they had gone out for dinner and drinks with Ashton’s sister.
During the journey to their home in Langdon Hills, Essex, Ashton became sick and vomited on himself. Carroll fetched baby wipes to clean the car, but an argument broke out between the driver and her partner.
Carroll told the court that she heard the pair arguing while she was cleaning and urged them to “leave it”.
The confrontation continued after they arrived home. As Ashton and Carroll walked towards their house, Ashton turned around, with CCTV footage capturing him shouting, “whoa, whoa, whoa”.
A neighbour told the court that he saw two people shouting before Turkmani accelerated towards Ashton, who was standing about four or five metres from the vehicle.
Prosecutors said the driver accelerated at “incredible speed”, dragging Ashton underneath the car. The victim suffered a broken leg and a brain injury after his head struck the ground. He died from his injuries eight days later.
Turkmani, who was cleared of murder and manslaughter, told the jury that he had been “panicking and frightened” during the confrontation and mistakenly hit Ashton while trying to escape.
Sentencing him, Judge Samantha Cohen said he had failed to pay adequate attention to Ashton’s whereabouts.
“You should have seen him, and you should have stopped before you hit him,” she said.
The judge said she sentenced Turkmani on the basis that he did not know Ashton was in front of the vehicle, in accordance with the jury’s verdict. However, she said he knew Ashton was still nearby and had shown a “complete disregard for the danger you posed”.
Turkmani will serve half of his five-year sentence in custody, less time already spent on remand, before being released on licence. He was also disqualified from driving for seven and a half years.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, Ashton’s mother, Jayne, described his death as an “unimaginable loss”, saying the family felt as though they were “serving a life sentence”.
Carroll said the trauma of losing her partner would remain with her.
“Living with the pain of missing Michael is unbearable,” she said.
Essex Police said Turkmani had reacted angrily after Ashton became unwell, adding that the incident escalated into violence and left the victim’s family devastated by what it described as a needless loss.
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