Widow’s fury after texting driver goes free
Killer motorist ‘distracted by phone’
A WIDOW whose husband was killed by a driver distracted by her phone criticised the justice system yesterday for letting motorists using mobiles at the wheel ‘get away with murder’.
Father- of-three Russ White was riding his motorbike home from work when he was knocked down by Sandra Tales, who was ‘significantly distracted’ after using her phone moments earlier.
Tales, 51, had been texting in slow traffic to arrange picking up her son.
Despite being charged with causing death by dangerous driving, prosecutors accepted her plea to the lesser offence of causing death by careless driving and she was given a suspended five-month jail sentence.
Yesterday, her victim’s widow, Nicky White, 43, called for tougher sentences and a crackdown on people who flout the law by using phones at the wheel.
She said: ‘Drivers are literally getting away with murder, as the courts are apparently unwilling or unable to get
‘Justice has not been done’
tough on the millions who flout this law on a daily basis.
‘When did “everyone does it” become justification for committing a criminal offence – and especially for an offence that can be fatal and devastating? No one would dare say drink driving is okay unless you kill someone, but that’s effectively what’s happening all the time about using phones while driving.’
Mr White, 55, was returning home from his job as a council road marker on December 16, 2013, when he was knocked down at 4.30pm.
Prosecutor Jonathan Sharp told Bradford Crown Court how Tales made a right turn in her Kia Picanto in the city and hit Mr White, who was riding in the opposite direction with his headlights on. He was unable to brake in time and died at the scene.
Mr Sharp said picking up her child was uppermost in Tales’s mind and she made the turn without looking properly.
The prosecution could not prove the phone was an ‘operative distraction’ as Tales, from Bradford, wasn’t using it at the time, but the court heard a text was started two minutes before emergency services were called.
At Tales’s trial in March, Judge Jonathan Durham Hall, QC, gave her a two-year driving ban.
Referring to her phone use, he said: ‘It’s not because of that the accident was caused, but it is evidence of your distraction. I hope everyone will do their best to bring to justice people who use phones when driving. It has to stop.’ He said there was ‘no explanation’ for not seeing the motorbike, adding: ‘ You were miles away.’ But Mrs White, of Kettlewell, North Yorkshire, said yesterday: ‘Justice has not been done. No example has been made that might stop the same tragedy.
‘Driving whilst texting, dialling and checking social media has to become as socially unacceptable as drink-driving and the penalties have to be a more effective deterrent. Millions has been spent getting the message across that “drink-driving wrecks lives”, but many more people use their phone at the wheel every day, when they wouldn’t dream of driving over the limit.
‘Using a mobile phone can wreck lives – just as it shattered mine and all of Russ’s family.’
Causing death by careless driving can lead to five years in jail, but offenders often go free. The road charity Brake says it ‘enables drivers who have caused enormous suffering to be let off with a paltry penalty’.