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Distracted driver Sophie Waugh (North Yorkshire Police)Distracted driver who sent 18 messages on Facebook and Snapchat before killing "clearly visible" cyclist in "wholly avoidable" collision jailed for six years
A driver distracted by her mobile phone who hit and killed a "clearly visible" cyclist in a "wholly avoidable" collision has been jailed for six years and eight months.
Sophie Waugh struck Ian Morris from behind on the A6055 in North Yorkshire on the afternoon of 28 June 2023, killing him instantly, and was on Friday jailed for six years and eight months at Teesside Crown Court having pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving and accepting that she was using her phone "prolifically" behind the wheel.
North Yorkshire Police's Digital Forensics Unit proved that the 31-year-old, a serving soldier with the British Army, had locked and unlocked her device 10 times between leaving her workplace at Alanbrooke Barracks at around 2pm and the crash around 24 minutes later. She had sent 13 messages on Facebook and six on Snapchat, a total of 34 incoming and outgoing messages during the time of her journey alone.
"Significantly, the digital evidence report showed that the handset had locked at 2.24pm with the Instagram app on the screen," the force explained, 2.24pm around the time that emergency services were alerted to the collision by a member of the public.
Waugh has also been banned from driving for five-and-a-half years, the ban only coming into effect once she is released from prison.
Witnesses reported seeing the driver veer to the left of the road, hitting Mr Morris, Waugh later claiming that she had not seen him. She initially claimed the cyclist must have swerved in front of her vehicle, but North Yorkshire Police's investigation and witnesses who "challenged her version of events" ultimately saw her plead guilty.
Detective Constable Laura Cleary, from the Major Collision Investigation Team, said: "Witnesses to the collision challenged her version of events, stating that Mr Morris was riding normally and wearing a long-sleeved fluorescent green cycling jersey and had a flashing red light on the rear of his bicycle at the time of the collision.
“They said it was Waugh's car that had veered towards Mr Morris. Thankfully, Waugh has now admitted causing death by dangerous driving and accepts that she was driving while using a mobile phone. This is one of the ‘Fatal 5’ factors in such collisions, the others being careless driving, drink and drug driving, not wearing a seatbelt and speeding.
"The horrific consequences of being distracted by mobile phones are plain to see in this case. This is a stark wake-up call for anyone who is tempted to use their phones while in control of a vehicle. Our thoughts remain with Mr Morris's family who have been left devastated by this wholly avoidable tragedy."
In a trio of family statements Mr Morris's wife Pauline and sons Jon and Tim expressed their grief.
"Ian Morris was my husband of nearly 50 years, a father to my two sons, a doting grandfather to our four beautiful grandchildren, and a close friend to many. His death has been a loss so great; words will not do it justice," Pauline said.
"We are still finding a way to live as a family without him, to manage the loss, to hold on tightly to the memories, to talk of him often, to keep him in our hearts without it breaking them. But it will never be over for us, the pain may dim, but our lives will never be the same again."
In a later section she explains how her husband took their usual route on a straight road with good visibility: "At night in bed, I go back through that day, and I struggled to understand what had happened. How could this nameless girl not see him, he had his lights and his green luminous top on, what was she doing? What could be more important than watching the road, more important than Ian’s life, hopefully I find that out today. I have not been able to get on a bicycle since, another hobby I used to enjoy.
"I never got to say goodbye and thank him for all the happy years we spent together. So, the impact is that I have learnt that grief is a very lonely road to walk, it is love that has no place to go. But in my heart of hearts, I know that Ian would want me and the family to get on with our lives, live them to the full and to be as happy as we can be. This is our goal."
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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32 comments
Ian Morris sounds like he was a lovely chap and deserved far better than he got. Whilst I welcome the better than normal sentance it should have been accompanied by a lifetime driving ban. If phone drivers received an immediate three month ban and £1000 fine it might make some impact. If caught again double the punishment. If caught three times lifetime ban.
Call it Ian's Law.
I'm sure that all the people calling Cycling Mikey a radical vigilante will take note and immediately desist.
Don't hold your breath...
Should have held my breath , and waited for the previous comment to post...(Slow internet day)
Anyone complaining about CyclingMikey (and other cyclists/people who use video evidence to report dangerous driving including phone use) are admitting that they are happy for people to be injured/killed and for everyone else to share the increase in motor vehicle insurance premiums.
Well - why wouldn't they be happy for everyone else to share the insurance costs? Perhaps they're not paying any, or like canny Lancashire drivers have saved some cash by not bothering with paying VED or getting a MOT?
canny Lancashire drivers have saved some cash by not bothering with paying VED or getting a MOT?
This is VW Passat KP58 GGA- at 08:15 no MOT since 14.10.24, no VED since 1.2.25
There were also, both at 08:18: Mercedes A-Class JC15 SLC, no MOT since 18.1.25 and Audi A3 AO64 WCZ, no MOT since 21.7.24
“They (the police or witnesses?) said it was Waugh's car that had veered towards Mr Morris..."
Why prosecute a human for the actions of the car?
Whilst I agree with most of the outrage in the comments - the fact remains that when taken against the average this is a pretty strong sentence, especially the driving ban.
Maybe we should celebrate the (small) positives, whilst by no means good, its a decent start on proper sentencing for criminal drivers.
Agreed. And as satisfying as it might be to see the odd person being given a lengthy prison sentence, I don't think longer sentences make much, if any difference to a person's decision to use their phone while driving.
Those who continue to use their phone while driving don't expect there to be any adverse consequences. They think they can still drive well enough, so don't expect to cause a collision, so a sixteen year sentence isn't more of a deterrant than a six year one, or knowing that they'd have to live the rest of their life knowing they took someone else's, because they don't ever think it will apply to them.
They also don't think they'll get caught, or at least the risk of getting caught is so low that the penalties are abstract.
We need a big public education campaign, simliar to the drink-driving ones, so enough people understand the dangers, including the danger of using phones at traffic lights or slow moving traffic. It needs to become socially unacceptable in the way that drink driving is unacceptable. And for those who might be tempted to think their driving and multitasking skills mean they'll be OK, there needs to be a realistic chance of prosecution for phone use.
Not just public portals for cyclists to submit camera footage, but more proactive work from the police. They should be deploying their own staff on push and motor-bikes with cameras. I remember seeing a feature where they had a camera in an unleaded lorry-cab that was able to overtake the slower moving lorries to see what they were up to inside their cabs, and the results were horrifying. More of that please.
I think SS is largely correct (given these often seem to be pretty feeble sentences)
BUT ... of course while one function of a sentence might be as a deterrent another is (in the case of prison) to physically prevent further offenses for a period of time. Ideally we'd be using that time for rehabilitation. Sadly that's terribly lacking in our prisons.
There's also the general message that "society does not condone this" and "desert". Although if society doesn't in fact care or even the reverse then this can have the opposite effect...
Anyway - as others have said the phone distraction genie seems so far out of the bottle * it's difficult to see how we can get it back simply by "education" and "deterrence" by our normal means. It may be the only effective ways involve "calling upon the devil to drive out demons" e.g. using tech here either to detect phone use while driving or somehow prevent it. (There is another option - just accept robotaxis - but I think those have potential for major "unintended consequences").
* Phones and tech being funded by people with very deep pockets. And - a bit like what happened with the earlier "tech" of "cars 1.0" - seized upon by the government and more uses pushed by them also because "cost savings" and "more power to do stuff".
more proactive work from the police
They don't have to be 'proactive', just 'active' and not always trying to get the offenders off would be a start. Lancashire Constabulary did nothing about these- not NFA, just no response. Nobody wants to put their name to binning these cases- they just delete and 'don't sign the log'. Some of you, at least, knew this was coming...
https://upride.cc/incident/yh66utp_audia1_handheldmobile/
https://upride.cc/incident/kd10wer_porsche_mobilephone/
https://upride.cc/incident/ld71uom_amazonprime_handheldmobilephone/
https://upride.cc/incident/pk55fxa_focus_handheldmobilephone/
Illegal numberplate too.
illegal numberplate too
Even I have to draw the line somewhere! LancsFilth refuses to enforce the law on RLJs, single and double unbroken white lines, hand held mobile phone use and MOTs. They openly declare they're not interested in VED evasion no matter how long and SORN abuse so I don't tell them about those. I report the rest and keep all the details, but I know they will never respond until they're forced to. I'm trying yet again with the PCC but there's little hope there, and after they have ignored the complaint it's off to my new MP, Cat Smith
The sad thing is, every day, as I cycle around the city, I see dozens and dozens of motorists on their phones. No one gives a toss. It's endemic and normal to drive whilst using a phone.
Years back I used to joke that if you wanted to kill someone and get off lightly, a car should be your weapon of choice. Seems like nothing has changed...
6 years is not near enough, this was not an accident, it was a total and complete disregard for the safety of others, she should have gotten at least 20 years. The bad thing about that 6 year sentence is that she'll probably be out in 2 years for good behavior.
All cell phones have a GPS built into the phones, all that GPS software has to do is be programmed so that once a car exceeds 10 mph it shuts off and you cannot receive texts or phone calls, that includes passengers, the only phone call you can make is for emergency services, the only other thing you can use the phone for is mapping for directions. Once you exceed 250 mph then the phone will come back on for use on planes.
Countries can pass all the laws they want but that won't stop people from using their phones, you have to stop the phone usage at a different level.
Passengers? Trains? Buses?
The driving ban should be in parallel with a mobile phone ban. That might even be more salutary for some people.
Six years, out in three, maybe less if Starmer's early release scheme is still running then. I know we're preaching to the converted here and nobody sets out on their drive with an intent to do harm, but honestly what message does that send to the wider world about phone use whilst driving, what sort of deterrant is it. None.
An equivalent manslaughter charge would've been longer. Deaths by motoring offences are too normalised.
My condolences to the family of her victim.
Nope - it probably wouldnt. Manslaughter guidelines are very wide. 1-24 years. Plus a 1/3 off for a guiltly plea.
Such is the value of a life.
https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/crown-court/item/unlawful-...
2 or 3 years for gross negligence manslaughter is fairly common.
A Welsh builder has been sentenced to two years in prison after being convicted of gross negligence manslaughter in the case of a three-year-old girl who was killed when a substandard wall collapsed on top of her.
Man jailed for gross negligence manslaughter after death of David Haw in boat collision (3 years)
Man jailed for negligence after death of man in Chilworth (3 years 3 months)
Hopefully, when she's released from His Majesty's Pleasure, she'll be back in to Colchester at His Majesty's Armed Forces Pleasure for bringing HMAF in to disrepute.
It will certainly be the end of her military career, I would have thought.
6 years is a complete joke. It should have a 1 in front of it and be followed by a lifetime driving ban.
I agree, when a driver has caused a fatality then there should be an automatic lifetime driving ban. The majority of the public want this so why isn't it happening?
I would say a 10 in front of the 6 would be a more appropriate sentence.
106 years? Seems a bit expensive to store a moldering corpse for that lenght of time.
"Waugh has also been banned from driving for five-and-a-half years"
nope. Not good enough. In what other kind of dangerous activity would you show such repeated recklessness that you kill another human being, and then deny such clear recklessness, yet still be allowed to do that activity after just a few years?
Condolences to the family.
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