I actually thought the last couple of episodes were showing that Leela wasn't over him, still loved him despite what he had done but he'd realised that the relationship wasn't healthy and he'd actually been in love with the memory of her, the idea of her and the life they should have had with their baby. Years in prison had turned it into an unhealthy obsession and meeting and falling for Celine had made him accept that.
Re feeling sympathy for him - that is harder.
When he was first introduced and we learnt the background, i did feel sorry for him. Whilst not excusing the severity and wrongness of being a get away driver, there is a big difference between that and being the person that commits the robbery with a gun in their hand. To be fitted up for the greater crime by a Police Officer just to keep a young man from their daughter is pretty horrific, to have to serve 14 years (as long as you'd been alive at the time of imprisonment) for a crime you didn't commit doesn't bear thinking about. Then add in his Mum dying during that time, it is no wonder he was very bitter towards Sam and desperate to reclaim the life he felt had been stolen from him. Also that getting Leela and the baby back had grown into an obsession - what else did he have to think about for all that time?
But then, they almost immediately had him be the hit and run driver that killed Sam and Danny which was bad enough but made worse by him trying to frame Ziggy. Hard to sympathize with that, although I do understand his desperation to keep Peri in the country and fear of going back to Prison.
People say he stalked Leela. Well, kind of but she did appear to reciprocate his feelings.
I do think he was basically a moral person, more so than many others in the show who did wrong things for reasons i could understand and sympathize with, even if i didn't approve. Very different to people like Freddie or Mercedes.
I think it is dreadfully sad that he is going to most likely spend another 15 years in Prison and by the time he gets out he will be well into middle age and almost completely institutionalized - even though he does need to serve time for the Lomaxes death.
I also thought he was well acted and yes i admit it, i think Cameron Moore is very attractive.
So, I'm really sorry he's most likely going.