Driver to go on trial after car hits boy trying to run across M62

12-year-old Callum Rycroft was hit and killed on the M62 after trying to cross the motorway at night, following a car crash

Callum Rycroft
Author: Liam ArrowsmithPublished 27th Feb 2024

A driver is to go on trial later this year, charged with dangerous driving and failing to stop, after a 12-year-old boy was hit and killed on the M62.

Callum Rycroft was trying to run across the motorway at night after his father drunkenly crashed the car they were in and tried to flee the scene.

Matthew Rycroft was jailed for 10 years last November for manslaughter.

The driver of the car that hit Callum, Shahid Ilyas, has been charged with driving a Toyota C-HR dangerously on the M62 and Whitehall Road, Cleckheaton on August 5 last year.

He is also accused of failing to stop after a road accident and failing to report that accident.

Ilyas, 48, of Moorfield Chase, Farnworth, Bolton, has pleaded not guilty to the three charges.

On Tuesday Judge Sophie McKone set a trial date of October 10 at Bradford Crown Court.

Harry Crowson, defending Ilyas, told the court: "He says he couldn't stop on the motorway. He stopped at the first place that seemed safe to him."

Callum was hit by a car while attempting to cross between junctions 25 and 26 of the M62 at about 9.50pm on August 5.

Leeds Crown Court heard Rycroft was driving drunk on the motorway on August 5 when he collided with a barrier and then overturned his Audi Q5 on the slip road to Hartshead Moor services, near Huddersfield.

The Crown Prosecution Service said Callum had no speed awareness due to his autism and "should have been under the protection of his father", who instead ran across the motorway and did not look back for his son who had been struck while trying to run with him.

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