The UK’s Solicitor General has agreed to meet with the heartbroken Lynn resident whose family were killed by a drug-driver last year as she continues her fight for “justice”.
Summer Mace’s petition to have Aurelijus Cielevicius’ jail term increased has already garnered more than 13,000 signatures. She set it up after he was handed ten and a half years behind bars, of which he will likely serve seven.
This came after the horror crash which saw him, while travelling at 96mph along the A47 at North Runcton, plough into the car containing Paul Carter, Lisa Carter and Jade Mace. In an instant, Summer lost her mother, sister and step-father.
Their killer, from Lynn, had crystal meth, cannabis and mephedrone in his system when he struck them and pleaded guilty to three counts of death by dangerous driving. He was banned from driving for 15 years.
On Tuesday evening, North West Norfolk MP James Wild appeared for an adjournment debate in the House of Commons in a bid to further raise awareness of Summer’s case.
Earlier this year, Mr Wild referred the sentencing of Cielevicius to Attorney General Michael Tomlinson after deeming it to be too short – but saw the appeal fail.
This week, the MP called on Mr Tomlinson to attend a meeting with Summer and him to explain this outcome. He agreed to the request.
Mr Wild said he wants parliament to explore “whether the system is actually working” in dealing with dangerous drivers, referring to new legislation which allows judges to impose life sentences on the likes of Cielevicius.
In his case, these powers were not used despite being approved in 2022. This is because they did not actually come into effect until July this year.
The MP told parliament: “The judge classed this as a level 1 case – the most serious – owing to a prolonged, persistent and deliberate course of very bad driving.
“There were six aggravating factors, yet the judge went on to state that a sentence after a trial would have been 14 years, when the maximum sentence legislated for by this parliament is life imprisonment.
“The simple question that many people have is: why?”
Mr Tomlinson responded by saying that the test to determine undue leniency in a judge’s sentencing “is a high one”, meaning it cannot easily be overturned.
He also admitted making a mistake in previously referring to the judge as a ‘he’ rather than a ‘she’, insisting this did not point to a lack of care in reviewing the case, and addressed Summer’s concerns about Cielevicius being handed concurrent sentences rather than consecutive ones.
“He (Mr Wild) specifically requested that I meet him and the family and, yes, of course I will,” Mr Tomlinson said.
However, Summer has told the Lynn News that she was disappointed with this response.
“We will be questioning him further when we have this meeting, as we feel he still hasn’t actually answered why our particular case was not given an appeal,” she said.
“My family that died are not a statistic. They are people who were cruelly killed in the hands of a selfish, reckless driver. They deserve more. Every life lost in such a way deserves more.
“We want to see the man who killed my beautiful family receive a sentence that actually fits the crime. We want to see actual justice.”
Cielevicius was on a curfew when he killed Summer’s family, who lived in Gedney, Lincolnshire, but was not being monitored.
Just minutes before the collision, the BMW had passed a stationary police vehicle at speed on Hardwick Road in Lynn. The officer was then deployed to the scene of the crash, where Cielevicius had only suffered minor injuries.
Summer said her mother’s injuries were comparable to something out of a “horror story”.
With her petition now garnering more than 13,000 signatures as she continues her fight for change, she has no plans to stop yet.
“We will continue to try and gain as many signatures as possible,” Summer, who now lives with her father Jason in Lynn, said.
“The support so far has been overwhelming, and we are doing everything we possibly can.”
In parliament, Mr Wild added: “For this family the nightmare will not end, but by making changes we can try to prevent others from suffering it.
“This debate is part of the process of putting forward those changes.”
