A DRINK driver who crashed his car and then made off from the scene, leaving his partner in the vehicle, has been jailed for four years.
Phillip Lesley Hall, 37, admitted causing her death by careless driving when over the drink drive limit.
Hall, of Lon yr Orsaf in Mold, who had previous convictions for dangerous driving and drink driving, left partner Lisa Joanne Hill in the car.
A court heard she would have died instantly.
He spent the next half hour walking across fields from the crash scene at Padeswood to Buckley.
He went to his sister’s home in Mancot where he drank more alcohol. The prosecution said that was to try and avoid detection for drink driving.
But the defence said while that was reprehensible, it was the actions of a man in panic who had just seen his partner and the mother of his two children die because of his actions.
Judge Niclas Parry, sitting at Mold Crown Court on Friday, jailed him for four years and banned him from driving for four years.
Hall had drunk the previous night, then that day drove to his brother’s home where he consumed more alcohol and then to his sister’s where he drank again.
When he drove with partner Miss Hill in the passenger seat it was the third time he had driven that day under the influence of alcohol, the judge said.
Hall later provided a reading of 150 milligrammes of alcohol in his blood compared to the limit of 80 but it was accepted that at the time of the crash it would have been less.
While his previous convictions were 17 years ago, they could not be ignored and it was clear he had not learned his lesson.
“Your attitude clearly did not change,” the judge said. “You left a mother without a daughter and two children without a mother.”
Judge Parry said he accepted it was also a personal loss to the defendant. “You lost a partner you loved, clearly, the mother of your children.”
Hall would spend every day of his sentence feeling “enormous responsibility” and the rest of his life bearing the guilty of her death.
The judge said no prison sentence could reconcile the family of the deceased with their loss, he said.
Hall admitted that on the A5118 at Padeswood near Mold, on February 26, he caused Miss Hill’s death by driving a Volvo without due care and attention, while unfit through drink.
He also admitted failing to stop, failing to report, no insurance and no driving licence. The court heard he had never had a driving licence but had been driving for years.
Prosecuting barrister Karl Scholz told how a couple, Barry and Gaynor Bonar, were driving along the road when the defendant’s car overtook them at about 8pm on Saturday, February 26 and clipped the rear offside.
Hall was said to be driving at between 70 mph and 80 mph and lost control of the car which somersaulted causing extensive damage to the roof.
Miss Hill was the front seat passenger. “She would have died instantaneously,” Mr Scholz explained.
Owen Edwards, defending, said Hall would have to live with the fact he ended the life of his partner, his childhood sweetheart and mother of his two children.
“No punishment by this court will match the punishment he has meted out to himself,” said Mr Edwards.
“This was a man who had seen his partner dead at his hands and as a result of his conduct.
“The proper response would have been to stay where he was. But he panicked. He went to his family, he drank and asked for the police to be contacted.”
He accepted that he was over the limit, the accident was his fault, he clipped the other car and lost control with catastrophic results.
- At the time of her death, the family of Miss Hill said the 39-year-old was “a loving mother who lived for her kids.”
Her sister Louise said in February that she “lived for her kids, Nathan, 19, and Charlotte, 13. They meant everything to her. They were her life. We will always remember her with love and affection.”
Miss Hill, who was brought up in Mold and attended Ysgol Maes Garmon, leaves parents Gerald and Pamela from Bryn Garmon, Mold, and brother Jason who lives in Wrexham.