A man has been jailed for causing the death of a Frodsham Watersports manager by careless driving, in what a judge described as a ‘tragedy of enormous proportions that should have been avoided’.
Richard Warner, of Ilkeston in Derbyshire, was handed a six month prison sentence at Chester Crown Court yesterday (November 24), following the fatal collision in Frodsham last year.
Philip Hawkins, 28, was killed when his Yamaha Thunderace motorcycle collided with a trailer towed by the Land Rover Discovery driven by 31-year-old Warner on the A56 Sutton Causeway on April 2, 2013.
Warner had been turning right across the single carriageway into Mill Lane back to his place of work, Golden Triangle Generators, when the collision occurred.
A jury of six men and six women took less than an hour to unanimously find Warner guilty last month.
According to Home Office pathologist Dr Brian Rogers, Mr Hawkins died almost immediately from multiple injuries.
Sentencing, Judge Roger Dutton said Warner was a ‘decent’ man who worked hard for his family but had been guilty of the ‘abject failure to see what was there’.
He said: “It was a tragedy of enormous proportions that should have been avoided and would have been avoided if you had not driven carelessly.
“The fact is that you were performing a manoeuvre that you had performed many times before, turning right into your employer’s premises.
“The evidence clearly accepted by the jury was that well within your line of sight was a motorcyclist coming in the opposite direction and you undertook a manoeuvre by pulling a very heavy trailer across a line of traffic into the premises.
“The reality is that he was plainly there to be seen. There was nothing else on the road between you and he.
“Why you missed seeing it is, I suspect, a question you have asked yourself time and time again.
“The answer, I am afraid, is that you missed seeing him because you were careless.”
PC Robert Wilson of Cheshire Constabulary’s collision investigation unit told the jury during the four-day trial that he was ‘confident’ that Mr Hawkins’ motorbike was travelling at more than 30mph but could not say it was substantially more.
But Judge Dutton rejected the proposition that Mr Hawkins had been driving excessively fast.
“It has been suggested that there may be some criticism of the deceased but I do not share that,” he said.
“The police officer shared with us an opinion that he was speeding but what is important is that nobody else, in my view, mentioned those high speeds by the motorcycle and so I dismiss that as a suggestion.”
During the trial, Warner said that he turned right when it was ‘safe for me to do so’ and that he drives ‘carefully’.
He maintained he had not seen the motorcycle at all.
Mr Hawkins’ father, Gary Hawkins, told the court yesterday how proud he was of his first-born son.
An emotional Mr Hawkins recalled how he had given him £5 to buy himself a present one Christmas.
He said his son returned from the local shopping centre with a small Christmas tree after noticing that his dad didn’t have one at his home.
“This would not be the first time he would reduce me to tears because of his kindness,” he said.
Mr Hawkins said the pair got on ‘really well’ and that he took pride in hearing from people how popular he was and how well he was doing at work.
“He excelled at his last job at Frodsham Watersports. He seemed to have found the life that he wanted.
“He was a happy lad,” he said.
Mr Hawkins added that he felt ‘robbed’ by the tragedy and that part of him went with his son when he passed away.
A statement by Mr Hawkins’ girlfriend Charlotte Terry, with whom he lived in Sutton Weaver, was read out. She said she could not describe how hurt she was and that she thinks about him every day.
The couple had been discussing getting engaged.
Warner’s barrister Ben Jones said his client had been ‘medically and emotionally affected’ as a result of the collision and is likely to ‘wrestle’ with it for many years to come.
Warner was also disqualified from driving for 12 months.
