Woman seeks £700k from driver who killed husband

A WIFE whose estranged husband was killed by a speeding car now wants £700,000 compensation, insisting he loved her and they would have got back together.

Travel agent Cathryn Craven, 50, left construction boss, Jayson Craven, taking their younger kids with her, in 2014.

But he was mown down and killed instantly while crossing a dual carriageway in Coventry before the split could be finalised.

Motorist, Terry Davies, of St Austell Road, Wyken, was jailed for four years at Coventry Crown Court in November 2015, having been convicted of causing Mr Craven’s death by dangerous driving.

Mrs Craven, a mum-of-three, is now bringing a £700,000 claim against the driver, claiming she was her husband’s “dependant” despite their impending divorce.

She still “loved him deeply” and that they probably would have got their marriage back on track had he not been killed, she claims. But lawyers for the driver’s insurers deny there was a “substantial chance” that the couple would have worked out their differences had Mr Craven lived. London’s High Court heard that Mr Craven was 48 when killed while crossing the Fletchamstead Highway in June 2014, after a boozy night out.

He was hit by Davies’ Audi Quatro at 86mph, on a stretch of the road with a 40mph limit, said Mrs Craven’s barrister, Marcus Grant.

He told Judge Jeremy Freedman that tensions between the couple “drove a wedge” between them, and Mr Craven “began to look for physical affection elsewhere and began an affair” in early 2014. On discovering this, Mrs Craven left the family home taking the younger children with her” and filed for divorce shortly afterwards, he added.

A decree nisi was pronounced seven weeks after Mr Craven was killed, the application having been lodged whilst he still lived.

Mr Grant, however, argued that the couple would have saved their marriage and that Mrs Craven remained dependent on her husband.

Her “desire to be divorced from him would have been lessened to the point of extinction” once she had released how badly off financially she would be without him, the barrister added.

Mr Craven, for his part, was “saying before his death about his own desire to save the marriage,” said Mr Grant. In the witness box, Mrs Craven said that her husband had been “trying to reconcile the marriage” when he died.

“He clearly loved me,” she told Judge Freedman.

“We had been through a lot of emotions. There had been sadness. He had been angry. He had been quiet and very loving.

“He sent me flowers at Christmas,” she added.

Lawyers for Mr Davies are denying the couple would have got back together or that Mrs Craven should be compensated as her husband’s dependant.

They point out that Mr Craven had cancelled the direct debit mortgage payments on the couple’s £475,000 five-bedroom detached home, in Green Lane, Coventry, shortly before he was killed.