A woman whose husband died after he was crushed to death on his bike, by a lorry driver who ignored a red light, has spoken movingly of her loss.
In a statement read by prosecutor Allison Hunter, Penelope Johnson said her husband made her the luckiest woman in the world, and that no area of her life had been unaffected by his death.
“His pyjamas are still under his pillow. I smell them and imagine he is here,” she said.
Johnson said that when she heard her husband was dead and in the mortuary, she remembered thinking that he would be cold and that she should take him some warm clothes and a blanket.
“When Alan’s rucksack was brought back to our home from the scene of the accident, I took out his sandwich that he had made for lunch and froze it – it is still in the freezer,” her statement said.
Alan Neve was killed after he was crushed by a lorry in the morning rush-hour in Holborn, central London, in July 2013. The driver, described as “insistently lawless”, has been jailed for three-and-a-half years for causing his death by careless driving. Barry Meyer, 53, of Walthamstow, east London, was sentenced at Blackfriars crown court. He was also disqualified from driving for 10 years.
Meyer pleaded guilty last month to causing death by careless driving, while two offences of driving while uninsured and unlicensed were allowed to lie on file.
In his sentencing remarks, Judge Daniel Worsley said Meyer – who has previous driving convictions including drink-driving – “crushed” 54-year-old Neve with both the front and back wheels of the lorry, resulting in “almost instant death”.
“Mr Neve had lived almost or just over half his life,” Worsley said. “He was the finest husband, father and family man, and plainly, as you have heard, in every way the finest and most decent of men.”
Worsley said the harm caused by Meyer is “devastating beyond all measure” and told him: “Nothing I can do or say can bring back Mr Neve or undo the horror your carelessness caused.”
Handing down the sentence, the judge referred to Meyer’s previous driving offences and said his history showed a “wretched disregard for the safety of road users”. He added there is no better adjective to describe Meyer’s driving than cavalier.
Johnson said in her statement: “I loved Alan with all my heart and he made me happier than anyone else in the world. There is not one area of my life that has not been affected.” She said she constantly looked for her husband on the underground or when she was driving in her car.
Everything had changed, she said; life “used to be vividly and richly coloured and now it is black and white”.
