The son of two retired Met officers who was spared prosecution when he killed two pedestrians after smoking cannabis is now being hunted by police after failing to appear before magistrates for what would have been his fourth court appearance since the fatal crash.
Max Coopey was over the drug-drive limit when he ploughed into IT sales manager Jason Imi, 48, and his 61-year-old colleague John Shackley, on August 2, 2018.
The pair, who had been walking back to their hotel after a work night out with colleagues, were thrown over the vehicle and died at the scene.
But despite driving under the influence of cannabis, the teenager, then 17, was controversially not charged with dangerous driving.
Since then he has convicted of a string of other offences, including driving over the influence, drug dealing and stashing £1,000 of cannabis at a £1million home in Ascot where he lives with his former Met sergeant father, Russel, and former policewoman mother, Catherine.
Max Coopey was over the drug-drive limit when he ploughed into IT sales manager Jason Imi, 48, and his 61-year-old colleague John Shackley, on August 2, 2018
Coopey, 21, now stands accused of committing a further offence of driving while disqualified on January 19 this year.
Court documents show he is accused of driving a Blue Fiat 500 in Ascot at the same address where he lives with his former Met Police officer parents in a £1million home.
He had been due to appear at Reading Magistrates Court yesterday for a first hearing in the case, but he had failed to attend, the court confirmed.
An arrest warrant for Coopey had been issued following his non-attendance, the court confirmed.
Coopey’s former Met Police Sergeant father, Russel Coopey, arriving at Reading Magistrates Court back in 2019
After he killed Mr Imi and Mr Shackley, Coopey was caught hiding 126g of herbal cannabis and 2g of cannabis resin worth up to £1,000 at his parents’ house.
But magistrates decided not to jail him, fining him £300 instead for drugs possession after his lawyer claimed he was ‘self-medicating’ in the wake of the crash.
During the hearing last year, Chloe Hill, defending, described the son of two retired Scotland Yard officers as a ‘badly behaved and difficult teenager’, but said he was now on the right path to university.
In February this year, Coopey appeared before magistrates for the third time for his ‘deliberate’ failure to take a blood test to measure whether he was driving under the influence of drugs.
He was found with cannabis and ‘burner phones’ which Reading Magistrates Court heard he was dealing to fund his own drug habit.
On 2 August 2018, Coopey, then aged 17, was at the wheel of his Met Police sergeant father’s sports car when he drove into John Shackley, 61 (pictured) and sales manager Jason Imi, 48
IT sales manager Jason Imi, 48, (pictured with his wife Sarah) also died in the smash
Coopey was given an 18-month community order after his lawyer claimed the defendant mentors young people to stop them committing crimes. He was disqualified from driving for 36 months.
In February 2020, Coopey agreed to pay Mr Imi’s widow Sarah £800,000 in damages for the 2018 crash.
He escaped with only a 24-month driving ban and 100 hours community service after police decided that the young driver – who had just passed his test two months earlier – should not be prosecuted for death by dangerous driving.
Coopey’s father was a Met Police Sergeant and his mother was a Police Constable with that force, but they both retired in early 2022, the Met confirmed.
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