Drug-driving ex Met-cop son involved in killer smash spared jail for THIRD time
The son of a sergeant in the MET police who was spared jail for killing two men in a drug-driving crash, and walked free again when cops found £1,000 of cannabis stashed at his parents home has now avoided prison for a third time after drug driving.
Max Coopey was in the dock again yesterday, appearing at Reading Magistrates’ Court charged with ‘deliberate’ failure to take a drug test after driving.
The court heard Coopey had taken to dealing to fund his own drug habit, after he was found with ‘burner’ phones and cannabis on him.
This is the third time the 21-year-old has avoided jail. He first appeared in court aged 17 after he ploughed into John Shackley, 61, and 48-year-old Jason Imi while driving his dad's Audi while he was high on cannabis in Sunningdale, Berkshire.
They had been walking back from a work dinner when they were struck by Coopey's A5 in August 2018.
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Coopey, whose parents were serving Met police officers at the time, was never prosecuted for causing the men's deaths after a police report absolved him of any blame.
One of the victims Jason Imi with his wife Sarah (INS Picture Desk/INS News Agency Ltd)Instead he was convicted of drug driving and walked free from court.
Coopey appeared in court again in January last year accused of stashing £1,000 of cannabis at his parents’ £1million home, but was spared jail again in May.
Coopey was spared jail again yesterday after the judge heard how he had started doing mentoring work with other young people at risk of offending.
Parents Sergeant Russel Coopey and Pc Catherine Coopey still provide the 21-year-old with money, the court heard. The couple both worked for Scotland Yard until they retired last year.
One of the victims John Shackley (INS Picture Desk/INS News Agency Ltd)In 2018 he was charged with drug driving after a Thames Valley Police investigation decided Coopey was not criminally liable for the deaths.
At Reading Magistrates' Court he was given a rehabilitation order, to replace the one he was already serving for a drug-driving offence committed eight weeks before the two men died.
He was also disqualified from driving for 24 months and charged £105 in costs.
Max Coopey (pictured 2019), the now-21-year-old is the son of two retired police officers (INS News Desk/INS News Agency Ltd)His mum Catherine Coopey, a school liaison police officer at the time, and dad Russel Coopey, then a sergeant, said they would pay the fine for him.
Investigators concluded Coopey was not responsible for the men's deaths as the crash could not have been avoided, despite the fact he was initially arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving.
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A 2018 inquest found the two men’s deaths were the result of 'road traffic collision' spite a submission by a lawyer representing the Imi family that the deaths were unlawful killing.
The case was ultimately settled at the London County Court for £800,000 on February 1, 2022.
Coopey, who was 17 and a juvenile at the time, had only passed his driving test two months before the fatal collision (Dan Holland/INS News Agency Ltd)A Statement from the Met said his parents had both retired ‘earlier in 2022’. It was believed they had retired after Coopey appeared in court charged with stashing £1,000 of cannabis at their £1million Ascot family home.
In that incident police searching his home address found more than 120g of herbal cannabis and two grams of cannabis resin in his bedroom at his parents' house. Coopey used the drugs to 'self-medicate' in the wake of the double-fatal crash, a lawyer defending him said in 2018.
In his most recent court appearance, on Friday, Coopey admitted he had failed to provide blood for a lab test in the course of an investigation into whether he had committed an offence when driving on July 22 last year.
He also admitted two charges of possessing with intent to supply cannabis on September 14, 2019 and February 21, 2020.
'You have developed an entrenched drug dependency and had turned to dealing not only to fund your own dependency but to earn money,' District judge Samuel Goozee told Coopey.
He was disqualified from driving for 36 months and ordered to pay costs of £100 and a surcharge of £95.
Goozee sentenced Coopey to an 18-month community order which would require him to complete 25 Rehabilitation Activity Requirement days, a mental health treatment requirement and to be on a monitoring tag for six months.
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