A driver who mounted the curb and killed a beloved daughter walking home from work was described as “the drunkest person I have ever seen ” by an experienced police officer.
Lancaster University student Fenella Hawes, 20, had been walking with a 16-year-old when she was hit by a car driven by Malcolm Waite, 68.
Waite didn't stop after ploughing into the pair, carrying on for a mile before smashing into a road sign and several trees.
Fenella was killed in the incident while her friend suffered cuts and bruises.
Waite, who was still more than three times the drink drive limit four hours after the crash, has now been jailed for eight years for causing death by careless driving, reported Manchester Evening News.
PC Callum Walchester, who arrested Waite at the scene of the collision, said: "I’ve been a PC for 10 years and worked in roads policing for almost six years, and he was the drunkest person I have ever seen behind the wheel of a car."
In a heartbreaking victim personal statement, her mother Margaret said: "Every day I sob, when I wake up, throughout the day at random times with seemingly no reason and when I go to bed at night. I picture her walking along, so happy carrying sunflowers for me, and then being hit by the car.
"I sob because I will never see Fenella again, I will never see her radiant smile or hear her laugh, I will never talk with her about her day or about her plans for the future, I will never help cheer her up when she is sad or gossip with her, I will never go on long walks with her again…I will never be able to sit with her in front of our fire …it will never be the same again.
"I sob for the future that she doesn't have because a drunken man chose to get into a car, knowing it was a weapon which could kill someone, and indeed it killed my 20-year-old daughter.
"She was a young adult beginning her life and her bright future was taken out in a few seconds because of someone who did not think or did not care.
"I sob because she was so happy. She was so lovely inside and out, she was so alive and now she isn't here, and never will be again. I never had a chance to say goodbye."
Following the sentencing at Norwich Crown Court, Detective Inspector David McCormack, of Norfolk police's Serious Collision Investigation Unit, said: "This is a tragedy, and it was wholly avoidable.
“I implore anyone who thinks it is okay to have a drink and then drive, please remember the heartbreaking and devastating consequences of drink-driving so evident in this case. Waite’s decision to drink and drive has changed lives forever.
"The teenage girl who, together with Fenella, was just walking home from work that day is traumatised by what has happened.
“Waite will have to live the rest of his life in the knowledge he has taken the life of a remarkable young woman who had so much to offer and lots she wanted to achieve.
“He has caused so much pain to so many people."
Waite, from Hoveton, Norfolk, was banned from driving for seven years.
