A lorry driver killed two men in a car after using his mobile phone to break up with his girlfriend and then woo a former lover, a court heard yesterday.
Keith Mees, 49, was sending Facebook messages to his ex-partner four seconds before his 38-tonne HGV smashed into the back of a Ford Mondeo, pushing it into a lorry in front.
Southampton Crown Court heard Mees had been using his mobile during the long-haul trip to sort out his relationships and to play music videos.
Just 15 minutes before the smash, on the M271 in Southampton on December 1 last year, Mees had spent almost 14 minutes on the phone dumping his girlfriend.
The call ended at 5.09pm, and by 5.12pm he was browsing Facebook and using the site to send messages to an ex-partner, with whom he was hoping to rekindle a relationship.
The court heard Mees "completely failed" to see slow traffic or brake. His HGV smashed into the back of the car, crushing it and instantly killing Marian Olteanu, 35, and father-of-two Ion Calin, 42, inside.
The two men, originally from Romania, had been on their way home from work at the time.
Harrowing pictures of the aftermath showed the HGVs almost nose to tail with the silver Mondeo sandwiched in between.
When told by emergency services at the scene that the two occupants "were gone", Mees, who had previously served a road ban for drink-driving, replied: "For f***’s sake, I’ve only had my [HGV] licence for a few weeks."
The families of the two victims said they were "distressed" to see a Facebook photo posted by the defendant with his thumbs up in a hospital bed following the accident, with a caption saying nurses "do not know they have swapped the morphine for Viagra".
On Friday, Mees, of Swadlincote, Derbyshire, admitted two counts of causing death by dangerous driving and one count of causing serious injury by dangerous driving.
Jailing him for six years, Judge Nicholas Rowland said: "The sole cause of this crash was your decision to use Facebook … You were going through some kind of turmoil in your private life which you were sorting out when you were on the road, when you should have been concentrating on the safety of other people.
"You searching for music videos shows where your priorities lay."
The case comes after a Daily Mail campaign earlier this year for the government to get tough on motorists caught using their phones behind the wheel.
Backed by road safety groups, politicians and families of the scores of victims killed by distracted drivers, ministers announced in September that punishments are set to double.
Drivers will face a six-point penalty on their licence if they are caught using a mobile at the wheel and a new ‘two strikes’ policy could see them reach the 12-point threshold for an automatic ban after two offences instead of four.
Young motorists with less than two years on the road would have their licence revoked if caught once. Simon Jones, prosecuting, said Mees was distracted for at least 20 seconds and had gone to reply to his ex-partner on Facebook’s messaging service moments before the smash.
The father of one later told police he had earlier called his current girlfriend to end their relationship using a hands-free kit, but no kit was ever found in his cab.
In a statement Calin’s wife Veronica said anyone who used a mobile phone at the wheel was a "terrible accident waiting to happen".
She described telling her two sons of their father’s death, saying: "I can’t forget the excruciating pain I felt when my boys went to bed, my little one with such sadness in his voice … when he realised [his dad’s] not going to come to give him a kiss.
"Ion was a doting father and husband whose loss we are still struggling to bear … it is heartbreaking that this could have been so easily avoided."
Simona McDonald, cousin of Olteanu, said: "No phone call, text, tweet or game is ever so important that it is worth risking the lives of those around you for."
The two families are now suing Mees’s insurers.
Inspector Darren Ord said: "The crash site was completely horrific … Family members want people to see these photos and to realise what a mistake using a phone behind the wheel is."