Father ‘extinguished’ by drink driver on a mobile
Judge condemns killer who was on wrong side of the road
A DRINK-DRIVER had been using his mobile phone for more than eight minutes before killing another motorist in a head-on crash.
Romans Krilovs had been bingeing on Jack Daniel’s whiskey and was on the wrong side of the road when he hit the other car.
A court heard that the call he was making on his hand-held phone ended just before or at the point of impact.
Neville Bogg, 61, was killed and his daughter Kerry Bamforth, 31, was seriously injured in the crash as they returned from a concert by the singer Birdy. Miss Bamforth, a teacher, bought the tickets as a Father’s Day treat. Police found an open bottle of Jack Daniel’s in the footwell of 41year-old Krilovs’ borrowed Volvo. A doctor later described him as ‘stinking of alcohol’.
Krilovs, a Latvian, had only been in the UK for three months and was unemployed. He pleaded guilty to causing greengrocer Mr Bogg’s death through dangerous driving and was jailed for nine years yesterday.
Judge Michael Heath told Krilovs he had ‘extinguished’ the life of Mr Bogg and caused his daughter catastrophic injuries.
The sentence came three months after the Daily Mail’s End The Mobile Madness campaign led to the penalty for being caught using a phone at the wheel being doubled to six points.
The campaign was launched last autumn after an RAC survey revealed a shocking increase in mobile phone use by drivers.
Mr Bogg, a father of three and grandfather from Spilsby, Lincolnshire, had to be cut from his Honda Civic after the crash last October. He died from multiple injuries. Miss Bamforth, also of Spilsby, spent a week in a coma following the crash at Sibsey, Lincolnshire. She had her spleen, gall bladder, pancreas and part of her bowel removed during four lifesaving operations and has been left with type 1 diabetes. In a witness statement read to LincolnKrilovs had Crown utterly Court obliteratedshe said her family and destroyed any sort of normal life for her. Krilovs was taken to hospital after going into a coma but when discharged refused to allow a blood sample taken from him the night he caused the crash to be tested. Prosecutor Gordon Aspden told the court the whiskey bottle found by police was only three-quarters full. He added: ‘As well as being drunk he was using a hand-held mobile phone.
‘He made a call at 11.42pm that lasted eight minutes and 14 seconds. It ended either seconds before or at the point of impact.
‘ For reasons best known to himself he was driving on the wrong side of the road, the right hand side, (which is) the correct side for Latvia.’
Shortly before the crash Krilovs also came to the attention of a motorist who said he was ‘tailgating’ her and driving in an aggressive manner.
Krilovs, who was living in Boston but now lives in Wolverhampton, also admitted causing serious injury by dangerous driving and refusing to allow a blood sample to be tested. He was banned from driving for 14 and a half years.
Neil Sands, defending, said Krilovs had no recollection of the crash. Mr Sands added: ‘He will be removed from the UK and almost certainly not be allowed back in.’