Driver ‘was on phone’ before killing Olympic star’s mother
ADRIVER who ran over and killed the mother of Olympic medallist Chris Boardman was on the phone to his wife seconds before the crash, a court has heard.
Liam and Victoria Rosney, both 32, deny perverting the course of justice by deleting records of the calls, made seconds before Carol Boardman was hit by Mr Rosney’s car on July 16, 2016.
Mr Rosney, of Welland Drive in Connah’s Quay, Flintshire, denies causing her death by dangerous driving, as well as an alternative count of causing death by careless driving.
On Monday, Mold Crown Court heard that Mrs Boardman, 75, whose cyclist son Chris won gold at the 1992 Olympics and is a Tour de France commentator, had suffered multiple injuries when she was hit by Mr Rosney’s Mitsubishi pick-up truck after falling from her bike.
John Philpotts, prosecuting, said Mrs Boardman, a keen cyclist, had been hit by the vehicle on a miniroundabout at the junction of Mold Road and Ffordd Llanarth in Connah’s Quay and later died in hospital.
Mr Philpotts said: “It’s the prosecution case that Liam Rosney had time to see Mrs Boardman and to stop in time to avoid driving over her as he did, but he clearly did neither of those things.”
Mr Philpotts told the court 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 phone handset, which was recovered by police from Mrs Rosney, who arrived at the scene after the crash.
When Mrs Rosney’s phone was seized by police in November 2016, all calls from the date of the collision and before had been deleted from the call log.
Mr Philpotts said: “The prosecution say that this is a case which tragically illustrates the potential extreme danger of using a mobile telephone whilst driving.
“As I’ve told you more than once, Liam Rosney’s speed leading up to the collision was perfectly reasonable. There’s no suggestion, I repeat, that he was under the influence of drink or drugs. But he was so distracted by the use of his mobile telephone that he was driving dangerously at the time when Mrs Boardman unfortunately became dismounted from her bicycle.”
He added: “The prosecution say both of these defendants well know the significance of their telephone conversations in the time leading up to the point very shortly before the collision. They knew it and they deleted the relevant calls from their respective handsets.”
Kayleigh Anders, who witnessed the crash while driving, said Mr Rosney did not seem to realise he had hit Mrs Boardman at first.
She said: “He was looking left and then down, and then left and then down. I think he was on his phone.”
She told the court that when he realised what had happened, she heard him say “she came from nowhere”.
Before they were sworn in, the jury were asked whether they followed racing cyclist Boardman on social media.
The trial continues.