Careless driver kills motorcyclist, leaving terminally ill widow to care for children

Sucha Singh only had a provisional licence and no insurance when he cut the corner at the junction of the A44 in Lower Moor, between Worcester and Evesham, killing Tomasz Kozmicki on his commute to work.

His widow, Agata, who has a brain tumour and does not know how long she has left to live, watched at Worcester Crown Court today as the 54-year-old driver was jailed for the crash which killed her 41-year-old husband whom she described as 'a perfect father' and 'my soulmate'.

Before pleading guilty to causing death by careless driving, Singh had attempted to blame Mr Kozmicki for the crash but changed his plea to guilty when an expert for the defence endorsed the prosecution case.

A guilty plea was entered on January 31 this year - more than four months after he indicated a not guilty plea on September 23 last year.

Singh said he had 30 years of driving experience in India as an HGV driver but had never passed a test in the UK, was unsupervised and was not displaying L plates when he crashed his Volkswagen Touran into Mr Kozmicki's 600cc Yamaha motorbike at the junction of the A44 and Salters Lane at Lower Moor at around 7am on July 9 last year.

Tim Sapwell, prosecuting the case, began by saying: "I'm sure everyone present would wish to express their condolences to her (Mrs Kozmicki) for the tragedy at the heart of this case."

He said of Singh: "He turned too early, cutting the corner so that he was heading into the right hand side of the junction of Salters Lane."

If the motorbike had been travelling at a speed of 70mph Singh would have had 6.4 seconds to see the bike over 200 metres and 7.5 seconds if the bike was travelling at 60mph.

Mr Zozmicki had been travelling in the Pershore bound carriageway and was described as being 'correctly positioned' while the defendant, travelling to work from Birmingham. was described as being completely across the centre line.

The front wheel of Mr Kozmicki's motorbike truck the front of the defendant's car, causing the rider to be thrown across the carriageway and into a ditch on the far side of the verge.

People at the scene attempted to revive him. "Sadly he did not regain consciousness and he was pronounced dead at the scene" said Mr Sapwell.

* Worcester rapist jailed for 14 years

* 'Do you think you're a boxer?' latest from machete trial

In interview Singh said he had had 'seven or eight driving lessons' in the UK but was awaiting his test. "He knew he should not be driving" said the prosecutor.

"He said he did not see Mr Kozmicki coming but blamed him for the collision" said Mr Sapwell.

The court heard that conditions were dry and clear and the rider had his headlights illuminated and was wearing bright orange trousers.

"He would have been clearly visible to anybody looking in that direction" said Mr Sapwell.

GUILTY: Sucha Singh initially denied causing death by careless driving until a defence witness instructed as an expert backed the prosecution case.

In a victim personal statement his widow said they had been together for 21 years, were married for 14 and had two children together, a boy aged six and a girl aged eight.

Four years ago she said she was diagnosed with a brain tumour, which she described as a stage four cancer, and was told at that time she had between three and 18 months to live, her husband being a 'pillar of strength throughout the period'.

They had discussed how, upon her death, Tomasz would take 'full parental responsibility and reduce his hours of work to achieve this', saving as much money as he could to pay off the mortgage.

JAILED: Sucha Singh is himself a father-of-two. He was said by his barrister to have shown remorse and to have felt a connection to the victim and his family.

"Now Tomasz is gone, I'm very concerned for our children" she said. She explained that the family had relied on her husband's income.

"Now I have to rely on the benefits system which is adding further strain to my situation" she said.

In the statement she said: "Our lives are destroyed. Tomasz was the centre of our world and now he's gone."

Judge Martin Jackson said Singh was a father-of-two grown up children with no previous convictions and had been a driver of HGVs in India for 30 years.

He said: "You only held a provisional licence. You were not supervised. You were not displaying L plates. As a consequence of that your insurance was invalid."

MISSED: Tomasz Kozmicki with his wife and children

Judge Jackson added: "You simply did not see him. Instead you tried to cut the corner into Salters Lane without maintaining a proper lookout for traffic coming the other way on the A44. That was driving which involved a high degree of carelessness, not simply momentary inattention."

He said of Mr Kozmicki: "He had no time to react. That is shown by the absence of any brake marks on the road. Two children are going to be deprived of their parents, of both their parents."

The judge jailed Singh of Salisbury Road, Smethwick for 14 months and imposed a driving ban of two years and seven months. There was no separate penalty imposed for the other offences but his licence will be endorsed with the details. No separate order was made for costs.