A multi-millionaire businessman has been jailed for causing the death by dangerous driving of a dog walker before driving off as he had an important meeting to get to.
Company director Jonathan Kane glanced at his phone to check he was on time and hit Catherine Bailey, sending her flying into a ditch and causing her to suffer a fractured spine and 14 broken ribs.
Kane was driving his Land Rover in the dark to catch a night sleeper from Cornwall, where he had a second home, back to London.
The body of the 45-year-old mother-of-one was found in a ditch by her husband, Alan, who went to look for her when she failed to return to home.
Truro crown court was told that Kane, 52, of Chelsea, west London, left the scene of the crash without reporting it because he was anxious to catch a flight to attend a business meeting in Germany.
Jailing him for two years, Judge Robert Linford said he believed the accident happened as Kane, a father of three, glanced down to look at his phone to see if he was on time.
He said: “The mitigation available says that you are a hardworking, generous, decent, family man who on one day of your life made the most crass decision with the most catastrophic of consequences.
“The fact is that not only did your decision to look at the app destroy the lives of Alan, Zoe [Bailey’s daughter] and the family, but also your life and those of your own family.”
The accident took place in north Cornwall, where Kane has had a holiday home since the late 1990s and also owns a small interest in a boat manufacturing business in Rock.
Kane said he was unaware of what he hit in July last year, suspecting it was an animal or a wheelie bin.
He said the first he knew of what happened was when he read a BBC news report stating that a woman had died in a hit and run near St Minver and told the jury it made him feel “shocked and very cold”.
Bailey had been walking home with her two dogs in a high-viz jacket after shutting up her chickens and checking on her parents for whom she cared.
Outside court, Bailey’s family said a “bright light” had gone out of their lives.
Her mother, Frances Kent, said: “Kate had lived on the farm with her husband Alan for 25 years and walked down that road every day to come and help us out at home. She always took safety very seriously wearing a high-viz jacket when near the roads.
“Her dad is in poor health having suffered with heart problems and I’ve had to overcome bowel cancer in the past year. We have had to go through all this without Kate who was our rock.
“Nothing will ever bring her back and we hope this sends out a message to all drivers to take responsibility for their actions on the roads.”
