The man who killed Rachel Murphy and Shelby Maher as they crossed Brockholes Brow has dropped his appeal against his sentence.

Mohmed Patel, 27, was convicted of causing the deaths of Rachel, 23, and Shelby, 17, when he collided with them in his BMW 320 SE, shortly after 6.30pm on April 20 2016.

Patel, of St Michael’s Road, Blackburn, denied he was using his mobile phone at the time of the collision but after reading a string of text messages between the driver and his girlfriend, the jury found him guilty of two counts of causing death by dangerous driving.

On August 7 2018, Judge Robert Altham sentenced him to six years in prison and banned him from driving for nine years.

Read more: This is exactly what happened in the Brockholes Brow crash

But despite the sentence, Patel continued to protest his innocence.

He lodged an appeal against his conviction and sentence, but when the Attorney General turned down the application, Patel launched a new appeal – against his sentence alone.

More than 1,000 people signed a petition calling for the Attorney General to block Patel’s application.

Today – almost a year after Patel was jailed – a spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Appeals Unit said: “We have now been informed by the Court of Appeal that Mohmed Patel has abandoned his appeal against sentence.”