Driver ‘was on phone before he killed mother of Chris Boardman’
THE elderly mother of Olympic cycling champion Chris Boardman was killed by a driver who had been using his mobile phone to call his wife seconds earlier, a court heard yesterday.
Carol Boardman, 75, whose son won gold at the 1992 Olympics, suffered multiple injuries when she was hit by Liam Rosney’s Mitsubishi pick-up truck after falling from her bike, a jury was told.
Rosney’s wife Victoria then allegedly deleted records of the calls between them. Liam Rosney, 32, denies causing her death by dangerous driving, as well as an alternative count of causing death by careless driving.
He and his wife, also 32, both deny perverting the course of justice over the deleted calls.
John Philpotts, prosecuting, said Mrs Boardman, a keen cyclist, had been hit by the vehicle on a roundabout in Connah’s Quay, North Wales, on July 16, 2016, and later died in hospital.
Liam Rosney had been calling his wife seconds earlier, he told the jury at Mold Crown Court, in Flintshire, Wales.
He added: ‘The prosecution say that this is a case which tragically illustrates the potential extreme danger of using a mobile telephone whilst driving.’
Opening the case, Mr Philpotts said Rosney ‘was so distracted by the use of his telephone that he was driving dangerously at a time when Mrs Boardman unfortunately became dismounted from her bicycle’.
The jury heard that Mrs Boardman had been wearing a helmet and indicated with her hand to turn at the roundabout as the truck approached. The pensioner fell from her bike and the pick-up drove over her, Mr Philpotts said. Her injuries were fatal and she died in the Countess of Chester Hospital the following morning.
Mr Rosney’s vehicle did not have hands-free phone equipment, the prosecutor said.
Mr Philpotts told the court that phone provider records showed four calls between Mr Rosney and his wife in the run-up to the crash, with the last one terminated four seconds before the crash is calculated to have happened.
But the calls did not appear on the log of his handset, which was recovered from Mrs Rosney, who arrived at the scene after the crash. The prosecutor said: ‘ It’s the prosecution case that Victoria Rosney, knowing the significance of that mobile phone communication ... took her husband’s mobile phone away from the scene and was complicit in the deletion of call records.’
He said Liam Rosney told police he didn’t deliberately delete calls from his phone ‘but he may have done so inadvertently’. His wife also denied deleting call data.
Witness Kayleigh Anders told the jury she saw the rear of the 4x4 ‘go straight over the body’. She said the driver was ‘sort of looking left and down’, adding: ‘I think he was on his phone.’
Mrs Anders said: ‘He looked as if his mouth was moving. He had one hand on the steering wheel. He was looking ahead but side to side and down on his left.’ She told the jury that Liam Rosney said after the collision: ‘She came from nowhere.’
Heulwen Jones-Pinch, a retired nurse, told the court she saw Mrs Boardman fall, adding: ‘He hasn’t seen her. It was all in seconds.’ The trial continues.