A drug-addled migrant driver who wiped out a family while speeding at almost 100mph has been quietly freed and deported – having served barely three years of a ten-and-a-half year jail sentence.
Aurelijus Cielevicius, 43, was yesterday flown back to his native Lithuania under Labour’s controversial early prison release scheme, despite killing Paul Carter, 41, his wife Lisa, 49, and her daughter Jade Mace, 25.
The Daily Mail can reveal the triple killer’s removal came just 12 days after his looming release was raised at Prime Minister’s Questions – where Sir Keir Starmer pledged to ‘look into’ the case.
Cielevicius was jailed following the devastating crash on the A47 in Norfolk in January 2023.
He was already on police bail and subject to a curfew when he ploughed along the wrong side of the road in his BMW X5 under a toxic cocktail of crystal meth, cannabis and the party drug M-Cat.
He careered into the family’s Vauxhall Mokka car at 96mph – yet escaped with just two broken ribs because he was so blitzed on drugs his muscles softened and absorbed the impact.
The family’s surviving daughter, Summer Mace, 26, told of her fury at learning the killer was now walking free in capital Vilnius, having served a total prison term of just three years and one month.
Ms Mace, a teacher from Kings Lynn, Norfolk, accused Labour of handing Cielevicius a ‘get-out-of-jail-free card’.
She said: ‘We are extremely hurt and feel so much anger.
‘I am now fighting with the feeling I have failed my family in not being able to get them justice.
‘Any small amount of faith I had in our justice system is gone and I despise living in a place that can think that three years and one month is an appropriate sentence served for killing three people.
‘We will never understand the decision that has been made.
‘That man is a killer with no regard for others.
‘He is a criminal, yet is walking free and has the ability to go anywhere in the world other than the UK, a small section of the world.’
Cielevicius was found to have been 15 times over the legal limit for methamphetamine and three times over the limit for cannabis.
Norwich Crown Court heard how he had sped through red traffic lights in the moments before the crash.
He admitted causing death by dangerous driving.
Ms Mace, who lost her mother, sister and stepdad, said news of the sudden deportation came ‘out of the blue’ while she was attempting to arrange a meeting with the government in a last-ditch attempt to halt the killer’s release.
At Prime Minister’s Questions on February 11, North West Norfolk MP James Wild described the looming deportation as ‘the final insult’, warning that ‘three years for three lives’ would ‘undermine public confidence in our justice system’.
Sir Keir replied that he would examine the circumstances ‘as quickly as possible’.
But on Friday – just four days before Cielevicius was deported – prisons minister Lord Timpson wrote to Mr Wild regarding the ‘potential early release’.
In the letter, seen by the Daily Mail, he wrote that ‘it would not be appropriate for me…to seek to influence the operational decision-making process.’
Ms Mace accused Labour of ‘hollow words’ and said she was ‘fighting a lost cause against people with power who do not look at things in a human capacity’.
She added: ‘I do not believe that it was ever going to be looked over as Keir Starmer had stated at Prime Minister’s Questions.
‘I believe the wheels would have already been in motion.
‘In everything we have been through, trying to fight justice for my beautiful family, we have always been let down and insulted.
‘And here we are again, having this happen.’
Labour introduced its early release scheme in September 2024 in a bid to tackle severe overcrowding in English prisons.
Under the changes, inmates can be freed after serving 40 per cent of their sentence rather than the standard 50 per cent, More than 40,000 prisoners were released early in the first 12 months.
Foreign national offenders, however, can be removed up to two years before the earliest release date, if they have served 30 per cent of their sentence.
Ms Mace, aged just 23 when she had to organise the funerals of her immediate family, said she was ‘devastated’ by Cielevicius’ early release.
Calling for Labour to review its eligibility criteria for the scheme, she said: ‘These people in their high positions are playing with real people’s lives.
‘Each case should be looked at in fine detail before a decision is made on its severity.
‘I will always stand by the fact that the man who killed my family not only took their lives but destroyed them.
‘I will never forget the fact that he was already a criminal and should not have been out of the house. I will never forget the fact that he was on an extreme amount of drugs.
‘I will never forget any detail of what he has done and most importantly, I will never be able to accept that he has taken my mum, stepdad and sister away from me and all those around them.
‘He ruined my life and he has gotten away with it so freely with a get-out-of-jail-free card.’
In his letter to Ms Mace’s MP, Lord Timpson defended the use of deportation orders, saying they ‘mitigate prison capacity pressures’ and ‘avoid the British taxpayer continuing to pay to hold foreign nationals who have come to this country and committed offences’.
The Home Office was approached for comment.
