A thief has been found guilty of murdering an Amazon delivery driver who was trying to stop his van from being stolen in Armley.
Claudiu-Carol Kondor was pronounced dead at the scene after suffering catastrophic head and chest injuries in the collision in Heights Drive on August 20 last year.
The 42-year-old, from Sheffield, had been delivering a package to an address in Alliance Street, Armley, shortly before 7pm that day when Mark Ross jumped into the driver’s seat of his silver Ford Transit Cargo van.
Claudiu tried to intervene, holding onto the passenger door as Ross sped off onto Whingate Road.
He clung to the open door with his feet scraping along the road as Ross swerved the van around at speed. Shocked witnesses saw him shouting for help, clearly in fear for his life.
The van initially clipped a parked car further up Heights Drive before colliding heavily with another parked car, opposite the junction with Heights Way, fatally injuring him.
Ross sped away and arranged for the van to be taken to a back street at Broom Nook, Belle Isle, to be stripped of its parcels.
The vehicle was then left in Highlands Walk, Belle Isle, where it was recovered by officers after its on-board tracker was followed.
Detectives from the Homicide and Major Enquiry Team carried out extensive house-to-house enquiries in the area where the van was recovered and found a witness to the van being left.
That information, combined with CCTV from the scene of the van theft, led detectives to Ross.
Over the course of the investigation, detectives seized and viewed about 110 hours of CCTV footage, recovered 368 exhibits and took 113 statements.
Ross, 32, pleaded guilty to manslaughter but denied murder. At his trial at Leeds Crown Court he claimed he had been unaware of Claudiu hanging onto the open passenger door and said he had crashed into the parked car after losing control on speed bumps.
But the prosecution’s case was that Ross was aware of Claudiu and had collided with the car deliberately to knock him off and escape regardless of the serious harm this would cause him.
Today, Ross was found guilty of Claudiu’s murder by a majority verdict by the jury. He’s due to be sentenced at Leeds Crown Court on Friday.
“A decent, hard-working man”
Senior Investigating Officer, Detective Chief Inspector James Entwistle said outside court: “Claudiu was a decent hard-working man and it’s clear he was determined not to let Ross take his livelihood. For half a mile he bravely clung to the open door as Ross swerved the van around at speed before deliberately crashing, leaving him fatally injured.
“Claudiu came to the UK from Romania to make a better life for himself. He was described by his work colleagues as being not just a dedicated and valued member of their team but a friend and a confidant. He was also a familiar friendly face to the many people he delivered to.
“His partner, who had also come to the UK for work, has since returned to Romania now seeing no future here. She and Claudiu’s family have been left utterly devastated by his death.
“It is truly heart-breaking that the life of an honest hard-working man has been snatched away by the cruel and callous actions of Mark Ross.
“Through the hard work, dedication and commitment of everyone involved, from those initial attending officers, the public providing information and CCTV, to the analytical and support staff and the detectives there throughout the investigation to its conclusion at court, we have been able to provide justice for Claudiu and his family.”