DRIVER WHO KILLED TENT MUM JAILED
AMAN has been jailed for eight years and four months after a woman died when he drunkenly drove his car into tents on a Welsh campsite.
Jake Waterhouse, 27, from Partington, Manchester, pleaded guilty at Mold Crown Court yesterday to causing the death by dangerous driving of Anna Roselyn Evans, 46, who died in hospital nine days after the incident on the Rhyd y Galen site near Bethel in Caernarfon on Monday, August 19.
Sion ap Mihangel, prosecuting, told the court Waterhouse and friend Philip Eves had been drinking Jack Daniels and lager at the campsite on the evening of Sunday, August 18.
The father-of-two, who only had a provisional licence, drove Mr Eves’ car around the site in the early hours of the morning of the following day, first colliding with the tent of Neil Cook and partner Megan Lazenby, who suffered minor injuries.
Waterhouse then crashed the car into the tent where Mrs Evans and her husband Huw had been asleep.
Mr ap Mihangel said Mr Evans, who had been woken by an “almighty bang”, was cut free from the tent, but could not find his wife.
He said: “Later he saw her legs sticking out from underneath the car, which was nearby.
“He felt helpless.”
The court heard five people lifted the car up to free Mrs Evans, who was unresponsive.
Waterhouse initially fled the scene, but after he rang his mother and she told him to do “the right thing” he returned, the court was told.
He tested positive for alcohol, but later gave insufficient breath tests and refused to give more specimens at the police station.
Mrs Evans, who worked for the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, was taken to Ysbyty Gwynedd but later transferred to a major trauma unit in Stoke, where she died on August 27.
In a statement, her husband said her death had had an emotional impact on all of the family, including her children Lowri, 25, and Richard, 24.
He said: “Anna was the love of my life and it will be so difficult to move on, especially with the manner in which she was taken away from us.”
The court heard Waterhouse had a number of previous convictions, including for violence, criminal damage, driving without insurance and driving not in accordance with a licence.
Matthew Curtis, defending, said his client was genuinely remorseful and had attempted to write a letter to the family of Mrs Evans.
He said: “He has been unable to get beyond a paragraph and he knows the words would never be the right words or enough.”
Sentencing, Judge Rowlands said it was an act “of the most appalling irresponsibility”.
He said: “I could so easily have been sentencing you for causing the death of not just one person but, in reality, four that night.”
Mentioning Mrs Evans’ wishes that her organs be donated, he said: “If ever there was a woman, mother, who contributed to her family and her community in life, but also in death, it seems a huge tragedy.”
Waterhouse, who was in tears at times in the dock had already admitted driving otherwise than in accordance with a licence, driving with no insurance and failing to provide a breath specimen for analysis when he appeared at Llandudno Magistrates’ Court in August.
He was disqualified from driving for 12 years and two months.