THE lorry driver who admitted killing four people from the same family after ploughing into stationary cars while changing music on his phone was today jailed for ten years.
Polish Tomasz Kroker was charged with causing the deaths of Tracey, Josh and Ethan Houghton and Aimee Goldsmith by dangerous driving in a horrific crash on the A34 road in August.
Footage of Kroker using his mobile phone to change the music playing in his cab before he caused a horrific crash which killed four people, was shown to the victims’ families in court today.
The judge sentencing Kroker heard that the dash cam footage recorded him having a mobile phone in his left hand.
He was holding it out to his left while he appeared to scroll though music selections as pop music played.
In the footage it was said he suddenly saw the vehicles in front of him and looked ‘horrified’ – but only noticed traffic when his lorry had almost reached the car he struck first.
The phone distracted him so much he failed to see a line of stationary traffic in front of him which had built up after another lorry slowed down while struggling to climb a hill.
The court had heard that Kroker, who himself had become a father five months before the incident, was so distracted by his phone that he barely looked at the road for almost a kilometre.
Passing sentence, Judge Maura McGowan said his attention had been so poor that he “might as well have had his eyes closed”.
Just an hour earlier he had signed a declaration to his employer, promising he would not use his phone at the wheel.
Tracy Houghton was killed alongside her two young boys and her partner’s daughter in the A34 crash.
She had just started a new job at Bedford Council, immediately opposite her home.
Tracy’s partner Mark Goldsmith witnessed the crash and suffered whiplash and a broken rib as he drove his own Vauxhall car with his 13-year-old son Jake as a passenger.
On October 10 Kroker admitted causing the deaths of Tracy, Josh and Ethan Houghton and Aimee Goldsmith by dangerous driving in the horror crash in August.
The latter three victims were aged just 11, 13, and 11 years respectively.
The court heard Kroker, 30, of Andover, Hants.,was distracted for seven seconds by his mobile phone before the crash, which was captured in harrowing dash cam footage.
The father-of-one was also charged with a single count of causing serious injury by dangerous driving following the crash which happened at around 5.10pm.
The Vauxhall car in which the group were was crushed to a third of its normal size by the impact of the collision and the weight of a lorry in front of it.
Charles Ward Jackson, prosecuting, said: “One of the issues a sentencing judge will have to think about is how long the defendant was distracted by his mobile phone.
“This was at least seven-and-three-quarter seconds as shown by dash cam video.
“The best evidence shows simultaneously the defendant looking repeatedly at his mobile phone.
“Another angle through the windscreen shows the fast-approaching queue of vehicles.”
Mr Jackson-Ward added: “The defendant, it is clear, was not looking. It is only 0.75 seconds before the crash that the camera shows the defendant looking up with some horror on his face.”
Four lorries and four cars were involved in the fatal crash in total which killed the mother and the three children from Dunstable, Bedfordshire.
The northbound carriageway was closed as emergency services rushed to the scene.
The crash closed a six-mile section of the A34, from junction 13 of the M4, near Newbury, Berks., between the villages of East and West Ilsley and it remained shut for more than 18 hours.
Dozens of emergency services were dispatched to the scene including specialist medics from the hazardous response unit.
Another man and a teenage boy were taken to hospital with minor injuries while another nine people were treated at the scene on the northbound carriageway for minor injuries.
The crash near East Ilsley happened on a stretch of road known as a notorious blackspot which has been subject to campaigns to reduce the speed limit.
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