Hairdresser almost killed her sister in crash while on Facebook at the wheel
A HAIRDRESSER has been jailed after ploughing her car into a wall while making a two- minute Facebook video call, almost killing her half-sister.
Danielle Cooper, who had not passed her driving test, was so ‘ engrossed’ in the conversation via Facebook’s Messenger internet- ca l l service on her mobile she did not even apply the brakes.
One of the passengers was her half-sister Linsay Taylor, a 30-yearold nurse, who the court heard suffered ‘life-threatening and lifechanging injuries’. Another passenger, Miss Taylor’s friend Elliott Moss, 26, was also seriously hurt, the court heard. Neither were wearing seat belts.
Cooper, 19, was driving a Ford Ka unsupervised with only her provisional licence and no L plates when she crashed. She was jailed for 18 months on Wednesday.
Grimsby Crown Court heard Cooper had been so ‘glued’ to the phone that she had stalled at a petrol station and forgotten to put on the car’s headlights.
In the preceding hours, records showed hundreds of calls and text messages, mainly to a 40-year-old man. She made a Facebook Messenger video call to the man while leaving the petrol station and it lasted two minutes and 11 seconds before it was ‘ suddenly and abruptly cut off’, the court heard.
Cooper, of Epworth, North Lincolnshire, admitted causing serious injury by dangerous driving, having no insurance and driving unsupervised with a provisional licence.
Prosecutor Jeremy Evans said Cooper, who had been socialising in Epworth before the crash, was not driving with L plates on the car at the time.
The court heard she was driving on the A161 from Belton to Epworth at 12.50am on August 20 last year when she lost control on an ‘innocuous’ right-hand bend.
She drove head-on into a wall, badly damaging the car and leaving the windscreen smashed. There was no evidence of braking or steering to avoid the wall.
Half-sister Miss Taylor, of Inkersall, Derbyshire, ended up wedged between the two front seats and was taken to Hull Royal Infirmary for intensive care. Her injuries
‘No memory of the incident’
included bleeding and bruising to the brain and she suffered fractures to the base of the neck, spine, ribs and jaw as well as lacerations to her forehead, temple and hand.
She also suffered lung problems and on August 27 last year her heart stopped and she had to be resuscitated. The next day, she needed a tracheotomy to help her breathe and was in intensive care for 19 days. She has since been sent to a rehabilitation unit and is due to have a further operation later this month.
Mr Evans said: ‘ It was not believed that she would survive the nature of her injuries. She has no memory of the incident and the weeks leading up to it.’
Mr Moss, also from Epworth, suffered a fractured ankle and hip, vertebrae damage, a scalp laceration and abrasions to his knees and legs and can also not remember the crash. The court heard he had been working as a delivery driver but had now been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and could no longer work.
In mitigation, David Godfrey said Cooper, who had no previous convictions, suffered a broken chestbone, a ruptured spleen and breaks to her back, shoulders, wrists and six ribs.
He said: ‘She feels shame. She feels a deep- seated anguish at what she did. Like her passengers, she has very little memory of what occurred that night. She knows she has shattered lives. Her sister was one of the victims and that’s a burden she will have to carry for the rest of her life.’
Sentencing, judge David Tremberg said Cooper had been ‘persistently and continuously distracted’ by her phone and was ‘engrossed in it’ at the petrol station.
He told her: ‘The consequences of your actions have been catastrophic. It’s a matter of pure chance you didn’t kill somebody.’
Cooper was also banned from driving for three years and nine months, and must pass an extended test when the ban ends.