Yorkshire Texting Driver Escapes Jail

17 December 2012, 16:50 | Updated: 30 March 2016, 13:50

A successful dentist from North Yorkshire who mowed down and killed a pedestrian while texting on her phone wept as she escaped a jail sentence.

Divorced mother-of-one 45 year old Kay Nolan, wrote the text in a layby but then pulled out on to a busy A road and hit her victim seconds after pressing send.

Nolan hit the brake in her Honda Jazz and swerved but struck 60 year old Stuart Mather, who had been crossing the A6068 in Higham, near Burnley, Lancashire, while out walking his Scottish Terrier dog, Hamish.

Mr Mather was thrown into the air and landed in the carriageway where he was run over by a second car. Nolan herself desperately gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation before her victim was air-lifted to the Royal Blackburn Hospital.

Mr Mather was pronounced dead on arrival. The dog also died.

Nolan was on her way home to Thornton-in-Craven, near Skipton, North Yorkshire from her practice in Padiham, near Burnley, Lancs when the accident happened on June 6, last year.

She sobbed and wailed in anguish as she stood in the dock awaiting sentence after admitting causing death by careless driving at an earlier hearing.

Nolan, who had never even had a point on her driving licence before, now suffers from a post-traumatic stress disorder and is having counselling, her lawyer told the court.

But Mr Justice Singh said he could spare the defendant jail mainly on the basis that if she went into custody there was no-one to care for her elderly mother and her 12 year old daughter.

Passing sentence he gave Nolan a 40-week jail sentence, suspended for 12 months. Nolan must also do 150 hours community service, go on a victim awareness course and keep a 7am to 7pm curfew, the judge ordered.