Long-time drug addict and drinker Adam Craig Hudson is responsible for two deaths.

He began his criminal career when he was a teenager.

By 18, he was on probation for burglary and banned from driving, but that didn’t stop him stealing a motorbike and riding it at nearly 50mph along the cycle path from York city centre to Osbaldwick.

Retired milkman Jack Middleton, 77, was out for an afternoon stroll on the same path and couldn’t get out of Hudson’s way. The two collided. Hudson fell off the bike and ran off, but Mr Middleton was fatally injured.

He died before he reached hospital.

Being prosecuted and serving a 30-month jail term for causing Mr Middleton’s death by dangerous riding didn’t stop Hudson.

He continued to make regular appearances before York’s courts, often for shoplifting and other forms of theft, but from time to time, he was convicted of violence.

In 2005, police had to knock him over with one of their cars to restrain him when he threw a knife at his mother. She had wanted to know why money was missing from her purse. He raged through the house while his family desperately dialled 999 for help.

They managed to get him out of the house, but he had knives on him and was not deterred when armed police arrived, telling them they would have to shoot him. They eventually disarmed him.

On another occasion, he broke a man’s jaw in the street outside a Subway outlet in York.

Hudson had been in the fast food takeaway when the victim had banged on its window to attract the attention of his friend, who was inside.

York Crown Court heard how Hudson took offence and went out to punch him to the ground and hit him again. That attack got him 16 months in jail for causing grievous bodily harm.

In February 2021, York magistrates put Hudson on a suspended prison sentence for a series of shop thefts, some of them in stores he had been banned from because he had stolen from them in the past. He was warned that if he reoffended in the next 18 months he could serve the sentence.

Ten months later, Hudson murdered Mr McNally. He has been behind bars ever since.