British hit-and-run driver who killed Swedish mum in Cyprus has sentence doubled

A British man who hit and killed a Swedish mother in Ayia Napa after smoking cannabis and drinking has seen his sentence doubled by a Cyprus court. 

Manraj Singh Sidhu, 26, was five times over the legal drink-drive limit and had cannabis in his blood when he ran down Camilla-Christina Pamdahl, 46, on May 4.

Sidhu, from Shefford in Hertfordshire, was originally given just one year in jail but the sentence was appealed following outrage from Ms Pamdahl’s family.

Cyprus’s supreme court said judges had ‘unanimously accepted the appeal for the inadequacy’ of the sentence and had decided to double it to two and a half years.

Manraj Singh Sidhu, 26, was jailed for just 12 months in June this year for fatally hitting Swedish mother Camilla-Christina Pamdahl, 46, with a dune buggy in Ayia Napa

Ms Pamdahl, 46, was staying in Cyprus with her five-year-old daughter and had just left their family resort to buy food when she was killed

‘The prison sentence was increased to two-and-a-half years, sending the appropriate message to society that provocative, selfish driving behaviour resulting in the loss of human lives should be addressed with rigour,’ the island’s attorney general said.

Sidhu had been drinking and smoking in Ayia Napa on the day in question before he struck Ms Pamdahl on a zebra crossing with a rented dune buggy.

Sidhu was five time over the legal drink-drive limit and had cannabis in his blood when he was arrested

The smash happened on the notorious party resort’s main strip around 6.30pm local time while Sidhu was trying to overtake another vehicle.

Ms Pamdahl, who was from Gothenburg had arrived in Cyprus on April 29 with her daughter for a week’s holiday and was staying at the Sunwing Family resort, which is Swedish-owned. 

She had left her daughter, five, at the kids club of the hotel where she was staying so she could visit a local supermarket. 

Ms Pamdahl was struck as she crossed the road outside the hotel before being rushed to Famagusta Hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Meanwhile Sidhu fled the scene but was tracked down and arrested around 11.30pm the same day after police put out at CCTV image of him.

He was brought to court in handcuffs and a sling where he pleaded guilty to  causing death due to a reckless or dangerous act, driving a vehicle under the influence of drugs, abandoning the scene of an accident and failing to report it.

The case was fast-tracked through the courts and in June he was sentenced to 12 months in jail and banned from driving for 18 months.

Sunwing Family resort owner Louis Misseris told MailOnline at the time: ‘It is very sad. I saw the accident as I arrived and saw the road was blocked by the police.

‘I decided to go and check it wasn’t one of our guests because the zebra crossing is right outside the hotel and at first the police were not able to say.

Sidhu fled the scene of the crash, on Ayia Napa’s main strip, but was tracked down five hours later and hauled to court after a police appeal

The rental buggy had overtaken a stopped car before fatally hitting Pamdahl on a pedestrian crossing on Ayia Napa’s Nissi Avenue

‘Then after about an hour or so one of the staff from the kids club told us that a little girl hadn’t been picked up and it was then we realised the victim was one of our guests.

‘The police gave us the name and we checked and she was staying with us – she had arrived the Friday before and should have left a week later.

‘She had just taken the chance to go shopping and left her daughter at the club for a few minutes. It’s very sad. The father came the following day to pick her up and take her back to Sweden.

‘We informed the guests about what had happened and everyone was shocked, we are thinking about putting some flowers at the scene in the next few days.’

Ayia Napa is known for attracting partying British tourists every summer.