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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
World
Hannah Kane & Sophie McCoid

Broken family wants you to watch this video so you never use your phone in a car again

A broken family want people to watch the moment a mum and her three children were killed by a lorry driver on his phone.

The devastating footage has been released by police in a bid to stop people using their phones on the road.

In the footage a lorry driver can be seen smashing into a row of stationary traffic while he looks down at his phone on the motorway.

The family who lost their lives were on their way back from holiday - reports Kent Live.

Tomasz Kroker had been changing the music on his phone when he ploughed into traffic in 2015, killing Tracy Houghton, 45, and her sons Ethan, 13, and Joshua, 11, as well as her partner's daughter, Aimee Goldsmith, 11.

Surrey Police released the distressing footage in a bid to stop drivers using their phones at the wheel.

Father of Josh and Ethan, Doug, said the two boys had been planning on playing Pokemon Go in Hyde Park upon their return.

He said: "I thought that was the worst day of my life, my kids being killed. But I think it was three weeks later when I went to the funeral director's and actually saw them, dead, cold, in their coffins."

Aimee's dad, Mark, said the children "couldn't wait to get home" to play Pokemon and said they hugged and kissed before getting into the car.

In the video clip, Aimee's mum, Kate, recalled in tears how the police had knocked on her door and told her her daughter had been killed in a car accident.

She said her daughter wanted to be a vet.

She said: "I continue to see drivers using their phones and it sickens me.

"If they had seen the devastation they brought my family, or to other families, by using phones, illegally... distracting themselves from driving a potential weapon...

"Would they be as sickened as we are?"

Kroker, 30, was jailed for 10 years at Reading Crown Court after pleading guilty to four deaths by dangerous driving and a single count of causing serious injury by dangerous driving.

After the lorry driver from Andover's conviction, former Gloucestershire police chief constable Suzette Davenport said it was up to the public to make it socially unacceptable to use your mobile at the wheel.

Nationally, the number of mobile users who text, make calls and check social media accounts has risen and "distracted driving" is expected to be the biggest single cause of death and injuries on the roads.

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