A lorry driver who was “distracted” as he looked at pornography images seconds before he killed a father of two in a motorway crash has been jailed.
Neil Platt was sentenced to 10 years behind bars on Friday for causing the death of a man while driving a heavy goods vehicle (HGV) near junction four of the M58 in Skelmersdale, Lancashire, on 17 May last year.
Preston Crown Court heard 43-year-old Platt was using the social media app X while driving, and images of naked women appeared on his feed as he approached stationary traffic.
Platt, at the time “heavily distracted,” then struck the Hyundai Kona car of Danny Aitchison, 46, as he waited at the end of a queue.
Mr Aitchison’s vehicle was pushed into the back of a tanker, and his car exploded into flames on impact.
Sentencing Platt, Judge Ian Unsworth KC said: “Your arrogant and selfish attitude to driving was quite breathtaking.
“You willingly and without any excuse chose to ignore the laws of the road. This was not a one-off glance on your phone… you were looking at such things as X, TikTok and YouTube.
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“The collision that occurred could have happened anywhere along that journey. The blunt reality is you travelled well over 100 miles in what was sometimes a highly distracted state.
“In short, you were a multi-tonne accident waiting to happen.”
The judge added that there was no evidence to suggest the defendant was searching for porn, but said he was “distracted by doing something so mindblowingly stupid”.
The court heard that Platt was persistently looking at his phone during the three-hour journey from Dumfries to the westbound carriageway of the M58.
Police had put a rolling roadblock in place earlier on the day of the crash after reports of a woman pedestrian on the motorway.
The crash happened just before 1pm, after Platt failed to notice the stationary traffic and applied his brakes only 35 metres away from Mr Aitchison and just one and a half seconds before impact.
Defending the “family-orientated” Platt, Stephen McNally said the driver was “genuinely remorseful,” and said the case showed “not giving the road your undivided attention and concentration can have the most devastating consequences”.
Platt, also a father and a HGV driver for 15 years, was described as “hating himself” for the trauma he had caused.
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Speaking to the court, Mr Aitchison’s partner Kerry, mother to his children Ella, 17, and Jack, 10, said she was on the phone to him at the time of his death.
After saying she assumed his battery had run out of charge, she added: “I feel angry he has lost his life in such a way.
“He was just coming home to me and the kids. Their hero has gone.”
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Platt, from Bootle, Merseyside, pleaded guilty to causing Mr Aitchison’s death at an earlier hearing.
He will serve two-thirds of his sentence in custody, and on his release will be banned from driving for seven years.
