Death-crash motorist, 81, ‘fell asleep at the wheel’

AN 81-YEAR-OLD woman who caused the death of an Aberystwyth father of three while driving from her Southport home to West Wales “must have fallen asleep at the wheel”, a judge has said.

At Swansea Crown Court, Margaret Christopher, of Hoole Lane, Banks, Southport, admitted causing the death by careless driving of 67-year-old David “Dai” England, of Llandre, Aberystwyth, on the A4159 near Lovesgrove, Aberystwyth, on March 19 last year.

Judge Huw Davies, who sentenced Christopher to 14 months’ imprisonment suspended for two years, said: “You must have fallen asleep at the wheel, there is no other explanation.”

He also banned Christopher from driving for two years.

Francis Jones, prosecuting, said Christopher, who had held a clean driving licence since 1960, failed to negotiate a left-hand bend and her Vauxhall Astra car drove head-on into a Peugeot car being driven by Mr England, whose primary-school teacher daughter, Rhian, was in the front passenger seat.

They were cut out of their badly damaged vehicle by firefighters.

Mr England was airlifted to the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, but died two days later of multiple injuries.

Rhian England, who had given birth to her daughter just months earlier, was taken to Swansea’s Morriston Hospital, where she had to have metal plates and screws inserted in a shat- tered knee, left arm and elbow, and she also suffered a cracked sternum and a hernia and had to spend three months in a wheelchair.

The defendant was also seriously hurt, suffering spinal and other injuries, and at one point was not expected to survive, but Mr Jones said that within three months she had made “an extraordinary” recovery.

Mr England was a member of Genau’r Glyn Community Council, a school governor at Ysgol Rhydypennau, a church warden at Llanbadarn Fawr, a key member of Aberystwyth RFC and a founder member of the Banc Bro community group,

In a victim impact statement read out to the court, his widow, Mair, said of her late husband of 44 years: “He was my best friend and soulmate.

“I’m not only mourning the loss of my Dai, I’m mourning the loss of the future we would have had together.”

In another victim impact statement, Rhian England said: “Family life has changed, my mother has to rely on friends to take her places and feels she’s imposing on others.”

She added she could still not straighten her arm fully and needed cosmetic surgery to cover scars.

Andrew Nuttall, for Christopher, said: “All she can say is that she is very, very sorry for this terrible tragedy.”