Phone death driver fails on appeal bid
Page 10
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• by Dominic Perry A truck driver who mowed down a motorist while sending a text message to his girlfriend has failed in his bid to have his jail sentence cut.
In February Basildon Crown Court convicted Paul Browning of causing death by dangerous driving and sentenced him to five years in prison.
Browning infamously ended his message "Shit, call you back" after ploughing into Paul Hammond who stood chatting to his mother in a lay-by on the A13 in Essex.
Rejecting his appeal, Lord Justice Mance told Browning that a stern deterrent sentence was necessary: "It can't be tolerable to think that it is appro
priate to compose and read text messages while driving a large heavy goods vehicle," he said.
The court heard how Hammond was struck and killed instantly as he picked up a pair of glasses from his mother Christine.
Kim Hollis, appearing for Browning, told the judge that he was a man of previous good character whose wife gave birth in April and is not coping at all" with his imprisonment and has needed counselling. Hollis added that Browning has sworn never to drive a truck again.
However, Mance concluded: "These are tragic circumstances, as so often is the case with death by dangerous driving cases, even on the part of the offender.
"But of course there's the far greater horror of the catastrophe which his conduct has caused the family; something which happened in front of the very eyes of Mrs Hammond. That's the reason why the court must mark this kind of offending with severe sentences."