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A DRIVER who killed a famous author’s stepdaughter and her three dogs in a horror drug-drive crash while racing two cars has been jailed.
Olivia Riley was mown down and killed in Chelsea, South West London, along with her two Labradors and a golden retriever.
The 41-year-old was the stepdaughter of best-selling author Lucinda Riley, who wrote the Seven Sisters series of books.
Laszlo Dancs, 28, has today been jailed for six years and eight months after he admitted to causing death by dangerous driving.
He also pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated with a controlled prescription drug over the prescribed limit, and driving while over the alcohol limit.
Dancs had 128mg of benzoylecgonine – the breakdown of cocaine in a body – in his system and was two-and-a-half times the drink-drive limit.
Olivia was walking her dogs on Cheyne Walk on May 14 last year when Dancs ploughed into her in his Audi TT.
The driver had been racing two separate cars – a BMW and Mercedes C Class – moments before the horror unfolded.
CCTV showed him accelerating away from traffic lights and overtaking the Mercedes, causing him to lose control.
The Audi slid across the carriageway and crashed into Olivia and her dogs at a pedestrian crossing.
An off-duty police officer who rushed over to help found Olivia lying in the road with a traffic light pole on top of her.
Dancs was heard repeating “the light was green” and was “pacing back and fourth”.
He was also heard saying “I wasn’t drunk”, but officers could smell alcohol on his breath.
Cops searching his car found two bottles of vodka, one of which was empty, and a small bag of cocaine.
His passenger said Dancs had been drinking and had taken cocaine as it was his birthday that day.
Tragically Olivia couldn’t be saved and was declared dead at the scene.
Tributes flooded in for the dog walker, who had been managing her stepmother’s estate following her death from cancer in 2021.
Her dad Stephen told the court how he brought Olivia up alone after her mother died during childbirth.
He said his daughter “loved deeply and cared for” her two siblings Leonora and Kit “as a mother figure” when his second wife died following a cancer diagnosis.
The dad added: “Olivia was a remarkably loving and generous person and cared for everyone she knew.
“The accused has left Leonora and Kit with not only no mother but the person who was guiding them with so much love and care throughout. They are devastated and suffering terribly as a result.
“I have lost someone who was a brightest light in my life for 41 years and who I will miss and mourn so deeply throughout my final years.”
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