A court has heard that the van driver who ran over and killed a cyclist was using Instagram and Facebook on his phone while driving.
When Simon Draper struck off-duty police sergeant Lynwen Thomas while she was riding down the A40 in Carmarthenshire, the 37-year-old sustained fatal injuries.
Draper asserts that he had handed his toddler son the mobile in the back of the car to “soothe” the child, despite his denials that he was using it at the time of the crash in February 2021.
The defendant, who is on trial at Swansea Crown Court, admits that his reckless driving contributed to the cyclist’s death, but he disputes the more serious accusation of causing death by unsafe driving.
Ms. Thomas was struck by a Ford Transit van being driven by the defendant on the evening of February 25th, 2013, when she was bicycling along the A40 near Bancyfelin.
She passed away at the site despite the best efforts of witnesses and paramedics.
The prosecution claims that Draper was “distracted” by his use of a mobile phone at the time of the crash, and that the standard of his driving was such that it was not only careless but dangerous, according to barrister Carina Hughes, who opened the case.
The defence attorney testified in court that an investigation of the defendant’s phone after the incident revealed that Draper often opened and closed and switched between apps, including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook, in the minutes leading up to the deadly collision.
At 6.42 o’clock, according to her, the defendant’s phone’s Instagram app was shut down, and at 6.43 o’clock, Draper’s van struck the cyclist.
The lawyer said that the phone was always held vertically and in portrait orientation.
She stated that the prosecution’s argument was that the defendant was using his phone while distracted and was not paying attention to the road in front of him, which prevented him from having “sufficient control of his car.”
Lynwen Thomas “paid the ultimate pay,” according to Miss Hughes, for the defendant’s risky use of a cell phone while driving.
The court heard that after the collision, Draper was detained and provided cops a prepared statement in which he claimed he hadn’t been in possession of the phone and that he had answered “no comment” to all inquiries.
