Driver jailed after fatal collision
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IA female lorry driver who killed a retired schoolmaster in a head-on collision has been jailed for eight months and banned for three years—despite a plea from the victim's widow not to send her to prison.
Alexandra Wells of Sandholme, Brough in East Yorkshire, pleaded guilty at Carlisle Crown Court last week to causing the death of Norman Mennie, 69, by dangerous driving.
Mennie, a former mayor of Appleby in Cumbria, died instantly when Wells' Scanla tractor, pulling a triaxie trailer loaded with seven tons of computers, failed to take a bend and crashed into his Renault Clio on the A66 near Appleby on 14 June last year.
Wells normally drove for Express Dairies but was in a different truck on the return leg of a trip to Dumfries, doing a favour for an owner-driver who was out of hours. Prosecuting counsel Jeremy Grout-Smith said it was clear she was "getting a move on to get home", because she had failed to take all her mandatory breaks and was driving at more than 60mph just before the accident.
The court heard that when asked by the police if she had been driving too fast, Wells replied: "I wouldn't have thought so. I travel that road a lot and I know it is nasty." Steven Garth, in mitigation, said Wells was "devastated by the fact that her error took a human life" and had vowed never to drive an artic again.
Judge John Phillips said he had received a letter from Mennie's widow, asking him not to send Wells to prison.
But he said courts could not pay too much attention to the views of victims' families, or people facing similar charges would get widely different sentences