We wake every day with the same pain
Anguish of widow, 26, whose husband was killed in crash caused by driver on a hands-free mobile
A YOUNG widow yesterday told of her agony as the driver who killed her husband while distracted by her hands-free kit was jailed for three years.
The driver, Samantha Ayres, 34, had made four mobile phone calls while driving her Ford Fiesta along a country road.
The teaching assistant was in the middle of a half-hour conversation when she swerved on to the wrong side of the road and ploughed into 26-year- old motorcyclist David Kirk, the father of a oneyear-old girl.
After Ayres was jailed, Katie Kirk, 26, spoke of the anguish of the past 12 months, saying: ‘Time does not heal.’
It follows the Daily Mail’s End The Mobile Phone Madness campaign, launched after the RAC warned that handheld phone use at the wheel had reached ‘epidemic’ proportions. Twenty-two people were killed and 99 seriously injured in accidents in 2015 in which mobile phone use was a contributing factor.
The Ayres case illustrates how drivers using legal hands-free kits can still be prosecuted if a jury concludes that making a call distracted them.
Some safety groups want mobile phone use by drivers to be outlawed completely, even if they are using a hands-free kit. An emotional statement issued by the family of Mr Kirk, whose daughter Alyssa is now two, described him as ‘the most caring father’ she could have wished for.
It said: ‘As a result of the driving of Mrs Ayres, our family now has to live with this tremendous loss.
‘Alyssa had just turned one when her daddy was killed – she has her whole life to live without her daddy.
‘People say time heals but we all wake up every morning with the same pain we felt the day it happened, hoping it was a horrible nightmare and then having to go through another day without seeing David’s cheeky smile or hearing his voice.
‘Time does not heal; we as a family are just learning how to hide our true emotions and the heartache this has caused.
‘This result is because of the actions of Mrs Ayres, and she will be returned to her family when she has served her time, our family will not get David back. There is a justice system for a reason and every action has a consequence.’
Ayres had been talking on her hands-free for 27 minutes in the run-up to the smash on November 7 last year.
Mr Kirk, from Lincoln, who worked at a motorcycle dealership, was riding his bike towards nearby Horsington when she struck him. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Ayres claimed she lost control after a rear tyre went on to a grass verge – but the jury rejected her account and ruled she was ‘distracted’ by the phone call.
Ayres, of Horncastle, Lincolnshire, pleaded guilty to causing death by careless driving but was found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving – an offence carrying up to 14 years’ imprisonment. She was jailed for three years yesterday at Lincoln Crown Court and disqualified from driving for four and a half years.
Sentencing her, Judge John Pini QC said: ‘No words are adequate to describe the profound sense of shock, desolation, pain and loss that will remain with Mr Kirk’s family for ever. For him to lose his life in this way is as irrational as it is unfair. Nothing I say can turn the clock back and no sentence will ever begin to make amends for his death.’
Commenting on the jury’s rejection of her account that she hadn’t been distracted by her phone, he said that ‘ many things’ could cause such a distraction. ‘In this case it just happened to be the use of a hands-free device,’ he added.
Michelle Stuart- Lofthouse, defending, said Ayres was remorseful and had suffered with depression, self-loathing and suicidal tendencies since the crash. She added: ‘ She wishes she could swap her life with Mr Kirk.’
Sergeant Chris Dennett of Lincolnshire Police, who investigated the crash, said: ‘International research evidence on the distracting effects of using the phone while driving is overwhelming, some of which shows a four to nine-times greater risk of having a collision by doing so.
‘The cognitive load while driving is very high; it is greatly increased if you combine that with being on the phone too.
‘If you use a phone in any way while driving, you alone take on the responsibility that you can still perform your duty to everyone around you as a road user, to drive safely and not be distracted from the task. The results of being on the phone when driving can be catastrophic.’
Jason Wakeford, of road safety charity Brake, said: ‘This tragic case graphically illustrates the dangers of using a mobile – even hands-free – at the wheel.
‘Studies show that a driver’s reaction time when using a hands free kit can be even slower than the impact of drink driving.’
‘No sentence will ever make amends’