Woman, 25, is sentenced for assisting offender who murdered e-bike riders

A WOMAN from Great Ayton has been sentenced for assisting an offender as two men who murdered a pair of e-bike riders they mistook for burglars were jailed for life.

- By GEORGE LITHGOW (PA) and JOHN ROGAN

Landscape gardener Alex Rose, 30, deliberately drove his black pickup truck into William Birchard, 21, and Darren George, 22, while driving the wrong way down a motorway slip road in Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey, in the early hours of July 22 last year.

Rose and passenger Charles Pardoe, 25, got into a 60mph chase after Rose had suspected they were trying to burgle his home in Manor Gardens, Sunbury, earlier that evening.

Rose was on the phone to his girlfriend Tara Knaggs, 25, throughout the pursuit. Jurors found Rose and Pardoe guilty of two counts of murder at Guildford Crown Court.

Rose, of Sunbury-upon-Thames, was sentenced to life to serve a minimum of 34 years, while Pardoe, of Feltham, was sentenced to life with a 29-year minimum term, the court said.