A lorry driver jailed for killing two Ryanair pilots in a horrific motorway crash was once a teenage joyrider with a string of motoring convictions, it can be revealed.
Anthony Burns, 63, was portrayed in court as someone whose driving record in recent years could ‘generally be regarded as good’.
But old driving convictions accounted for many of the 28 previous offences on his criminal record.
The trucker had a clean 30-year record at the wheel of heavy goods vehicles except for receiving three penalty points for carrying an unsafe load in North Lincolnshire in 2021.
But Burns – who this week received a 10-year fixed sentence meaning he could be released in as little as four years rather than the maximum punishment of life – committed a string of motoring offences while in his teens and twenties.
Burns killed Captain Matt Greenhalgh, 28, and Senior First Officer Jamie Fernandes, 24, in July 2024 after ploughing his 44-ton Scania lorry into the pilots’ taxi, which was at the rear of a queue of stationary traffic, at an estimated 50mph.
He only braked a second before impact despite having a clear view of the road ahead for 500 metres.
Uber taxi driver, Rashid Mehmood, who was taking the pilots from Luton Airport back to their base at Liverpool John Lennon Airport, was miraculously able to climb from the wreckage of his Toyota Auris car but suffered a broken shoulder, fractured ribs and spinal injuries.
Anthony Burns, jailed for 10 years over deaths of pilots Matt Greenhalgh and Jamie Fernandes
Ryanair pilots Senior First Officer Jamie Fernandes, left, and Captain Matt Greenhalgh
Burns, of Upton, Wirral, was sentenced on Tuesday after admitting two counts of causing death by dangerous driving and one of causing serious injury by dangerous driving.
Records show Burns was previously in court multiple times for a string of driving offences as a teenager then a young man in the late 1970s and 1980s- and served a short sentence in youth detention.
Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said Burns should not have been able to take up a career as a commercial driver given his past conduct.
Asked whether he should have been allowed to work as an HGV driver, Sir Iain said: ‘No, he shouldn’t have’.
He described Burns’ catastrophic driving as ‘a classic example of the head not knowing what the hands are doing’.
Burns was just 14 when he appeared at Wirral Juvenile Court in May 1977 charged with taking a motor vehicle without consent, going equipped for theft, driving without insurance and driving while disqualified. He was given a two-year conditional discharge.
It is not known when he received the earlier driving disqualification prior to the May 1977 hearing. The punishment can be given to people convicted of motoring offences even if below the legal driving age.
In November 1980, Wirral Magistrates gave the then-18-year-old a 12-month suspended prison sentence for taking a vehicle without consent, driving without insurance and while disqualified. He was also banned from driving for 18 months.
He was hauled back to the same court in breach of the suspended sentence and driving ban seven months later, in May 1981, after being caught stealing another vehicle.
He received three months’ youth detention for taking a vehicle without consent, driving while disqualified and without insurance. Breach of the suspended sentence saw him given an extra 14-days’ imprisonment.
Burns was fined and given an 18-month driving ban in October 1988, when he had just turned 26, again imposed by Wirral Magistrates after he was convicted of driving while disqualified and with no insurance.
And he had two suspended prison sentences in more recent years – a nine-month term imposed at Liverpool Crown Court for arson in March 1993, and 14 weeks by Wirral Magistrates in 2009 for common assault.
Because the previous driving offences happened so long ago, they had little influence on his punishment for the crash which killed Mr Greenhalgh and Mr Fernandes, on the M62 near Warrington, Cheshire, at 5.31am on July 11, 2024.
During Burns’ sentencing for the pilots’ deaths, Judge Simon Medland, KC, referred to his lack of recent driving offences and said: ‘It cannot be said to be a bad driving record. It can be regarded as good.’
The judge said there was ‘somewhat less weight to be attached to his historic convictions for taking without consent’.
Burns’ entire criminal record totals 28 past offences prior to the M62 tragedy.
Before the truck driver was sentenced, Mr Greenhalgh’s grieving widow told of her ‘struggle to see how I have a future’.
Hannah Greenhalgh fought back tears as she gave an emotional statement to the court.
The early morning tragedy, in driving rain near Warrington, Cheshire, happened just three months after she and Mr Greenhalgh had married in Las Vegas – and before they even had chance to hold a further ceremony back in Britain with relatives.
Mrs Greenhalgh recalled how, having bought their first home and tied the knot, the couple were planning their future together and wanted to start a family.
But she said: ‘At 27, after three months’ marriage, I became a widow.’
She said she has since suffered on a daily basis from her grief, adding: ‘I struggle to see how I can have a future after everything was taken from me.’
Mrs Greenhalgh – whose husband qualified as a pilot aged 19 – told the court even her home became ‘unbearable because I kept seeing Matt sat before me’ and that she has had to move house to help her come to terms with what happened.
The grieving widow kissed her husband goodbye’ when he left home on July 10.
She had a ‘sixth sense’ something was wrong when she did not receive a text from him the next morning.
Mr Greenhalgh had flown out of Liverpool John Lennon Airport, where he was based, then brought an empty plane back from Palma to Luton, before he and Mr Fernandes were given a taxi back to Liverpool.
They were killed in the collision at 5.31am on July 11, when their Toyota Auris taxi was stationary behind a lorry in queueing traffic and Burns’ HGV ran into the back of them at 50mph – despite an advisory 40mph limit.
He only braked a second before impact despite a clear view of the queuing traffic for 500 metres, the court was told.
Mrs Greenhalgh, who was ‘expecting a message’ in the early hours, said: ‘I started calling local hospitals because my sixth sense told me something wasn’t right. My worst fears were confirmed when police knocked at the door.’
She said of her late husband: ‘He got passengers home safely every day but he didn’t make it home himself.’
Mrs Greenhalgh told how in the weeks and months after her husband’s death she faced agonies including asking to see Burns’ Scania lorry, which was fully loaded and weighed 44 tonnes at the time of the collision. She described it in court as a ‘deadly weapon’.
‘It took me nine months to get Matt’s epaulettes back,’ she added.
Hannah Greenhalgh became a widow just three months after she and Matt wed in Las Vegas
Mr Fernandes’ mother Amanda Lindsay told how her family first became aware of the tragedy after receiving an alert from his Apple device, which had detected he had been in a crash and automatically called emergency services.
They ended up calling Lancashire, then Merseyside and finally Cheshire police forces before news of the tragedy was confirmed.
Ms Lindsay said: ‘Our lives can never be fixed. I will never understand why it had to be him. What tortures us more than anything is how much we’re missing him and if he’s up there missing us, too.’
She added her son’s room at the family home in Chorley, Lancs., has been left untouched, and told how it would have ‘meant the world’ to see the ‘mature family man he would have become’.
Uber taxi driver Mr Mehmood, who was left with broken ribs and a broken shoulder but managed to crawl out of the wreckage of his wrecked Toyota Auris after shouting for help to astonished police officers, told how he has ‘not driven a taxi since’.
The father-of-one, who has ‘spinal issues’, said he also struggles with anger and has to ‘lock myself away so I don’t upset members of my family’.
Evidence from Burns’ lorry’s tachograph device showed he ignored a 40mph advisory speed limit imposed due to the weather and traffic jam.
He only braked one second before impact with the rear of Mr Mehmood’s Toyota taxi, which was shunted into the rear of a lorry.
Lorry driver Anthony Burns arrives at Liverpool Crown Court before his sentencing on Tuesday
Damian Nolan, prosecuting, told Liverpool Crown Court the taxi had sustained ‘devastating crush damage on all sides’ and had been rotated 180 degrees in the road.
Burns’ lorry came to rest between lanes two and three of the motorway.
Describing the miracle survival of the taxi driver, Mr Nolan said a police officer ‘heard a voice shouting for help’.
He said: ‘At first, he couldn’t see anyone before a hand then appeared from the wreckage. A head then appeared. It was Mr Mehmood who was conscious and breathing. Remarkably, he had survived the impact’.
Both pilots, who had fallen asleep during the taxi journey, suffered traumatic head injuries and ‘other multiple injuries’.
The court heard Burns was not on his phone or under the influence of drink and drugs. Another driver speculated it was ‘as if he had fallen asleep’ at the wheel.
Burns was ‘riven with remorse’ and has suffered mental health difficulties since the tragedy, his barrister Michael Hayton, KC, said.
While he was suspected of having fallen asleep at the wheel, his barrister claimed he was ‘effectively on autopilot’ and ‘did not register what was ahead of him until it was far, far too late’.
Sentencing, Judge Simon Medland, KC, said the collision was a ‘dreadful, tragic episode’ which had left an ‘enduring impact’ on both sets of bereaved families and Mr Mehmood.
As well as the jail sentence, Burns was banned from driving for 150 months and must pass an extended retest.
