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16
Mar
Woman jailed after fatal Brimham Rocks Road crash
Warning: this article contains distressing information.
A woman who drove in her socks and used her mobile phone to film her boyfriend hanging out of a passenger window has been jailed for three years after her car crashed into a ditch, causing his death.
Mia Howarth, 21, was just 18 years’ old when the horror crash occurred on Brimham Rocks Road near Harrogate on the evening of September 12, 2023, York Crown Court heard.
Prosecutor Chloe Hudson said that Howarth had been using various apps on her mobile phone which she repeatedly “locked and unlocked” during the fateful journey.
Moments before the fatal crash, she was filming her boyfriend Alfie Lovett, 17, and another boy “hanging out of the (car) windows” as the vehicle was in transit.
Ms Hudson said there was “shouting and loud music” inside the car in the moments before the accident which resulted in the death of Alfie who had become a father just 12 weeks before the accident.
Footage from the mobile phone showed Alfie “sitting through the window frame of the moving vehicle”.
Ms Hudson added:
At one point the camera panned to the defendant.
She said that throughout the journey, Howarth’s mobile had been “locked and unlocked multiple times and several apps were used” including Google Maps, Spotify and Camera.
The Snapchat video of Alfie hanging out of the window, taken on Howarth’s phone, was made at 6.37pm, just moments before the car careered off the road and into a ditch.
Alfie Lovett died in a collision on Brimham Rocks Road.
Alfie, who had apparently taken his seat belt off, had also been filmed by a young man who was a rear-seat passenger in the car.
“As a result of the collision, Alfie was ejected from his position in the car,” said Ms Hudson.
Due to the crash, near Stripe Lane in Hartwith, Alfie suffered fatal chest injuries.
Two days after the fatal crash, a man went into Fulford Road Police Station in York and handed officers footage of Alfie hanging out of the window just before being flung from the car.
This footage had been taken by the rear-seat passenger and shared with the man who gave the film to police.
Ms Hudson said:
That footage showed Mr Lovett was on the near-side windowsill, his feet on the near-side front passenger seat with his whole body outside the car, facing the offside.
An accident investigation by a specialist traffic officer concluded that Alfie’s upper torso had been outside the vehicle in the moments before the crash.
He said that Howarth’s vehicle, which was doing about 35mph and wasn’t speeding, began to “veer gently to the near side” as Howarth turned to her left and used her phone to film Alfie while still in transit.
Ms Hudson added:
As a result of that, the vehicle left the road to the near side, across a grass verge, and went into a ditch.
The officer said that the damage to the car was consistent with a “slow-speed-glance impact with a stone wall, with the passenger between the vehicle and the wall”.
There had been two male passengers in the back seat of the car during the ill-fated journey.
Howarth and others went to Alfie’s assistance at the roadside and when police arrived, she said it was her fault.
She was brought in for questioning and told officers she had stayed over at Alfie’s home the night before the crash.
They had been on their way to Brimham Rocks, the tourist attraction famed for its ancient giant-rock formations, which she and Alfie had talked of visiting “for some time”.
York Crown Court
She said that at one point on their journey they turned around because they “weren’t sure where they were going” as she didn’t know the area.
She said she “hated country roads” and that her father had previously warned her about “having boys in the car hanging out of window”.
She said that Alfie had taken his seat belt off and that she had told the other passengers “multiple times that they must have their seat belts on”.
She admitted she didn’t have her shoes on, and was only wearing socks, because her shoes were slipping off the pedals.
She said she had had the car for one month prior to the accident and had passed her test about 12 months previously.
Howarth, a former care-home manager from Horbury near Wakefield, was charged with causing death by dangerous driving and admitted the offence when she appeared at the Crown Court today (March 16) in a highly emotional state.
‘The emotional impact on our family is profound’
The prosecution read out a statement from Alfie’s family members who described him as “unique in so many ways”.
His heartbroken mother Anne Brody said her son was “funny, caring and fiercely protective of his family and friends”.
She added:
He had ambitions to play in a band and he certainly had the talent to make it happen,
Alfie was a father when he died. He wanted to be the best dad he possibly could be. My last text message to Alfie was about how proud I was of him.
She said that Alfie was also a “protective big brother” to his siblings, adding:
The emotional impact on our family is profound and ongoing.
Alfie’s father Benjamin Lovett said:
To try and put into words the impact of losing Alfie is to try and describe losing a piece of my heart. He had an incredible charm.
Defence barrister Glenn Parsons said that Howarth was deeply remorseful and had been so “every moment, every second and every day” since her actions led to the death of her former boyfriend whose family she knew well.
He said that Alfie’s family recognised that she had had a “good, settling influence” on him before the tragic events of three years ago.
He said that Howarth, of Cooperative Street, Horbury, had since quit her job as a care-home manager due to the strain of Alfie’s death and the court proceedings which had had a “devastating” effect on her.
Mr Parsons added:
She has killed her (former) partner, a loved one, and knows more than anybody what damage that has done.
She had a solid future ahead of her which now lies in tatters.
Judge Sean Morris described Howarth’s driving while using her phone, with teenage boys hanging out of the window, as a “highly dangerous manoeuvre”.
“The music was thumping, boys were playing around, hanging out the window,” he added.
He told Howarth:
What you should have done was to stop the car and refuse to drive until they behaved themselves, but you didn’t.
You carried on driving and to make it worse, you were on your phone, and when young Alfie was hanging out the window, you were filming him on your phone…and you run into a ditch and he loses his life.
(Alfie’s mother) has got a hole in her life, as has (his father), and that hole in their life will remain there, a dark void, and a young (child) is missing a father.
He added:
You are a young lady of good character. You are ordinarily a thoroughly decent, pleasant young lady…but young people need to learn (to) stay off the mobile when driving.
The judge noted that Howarth had a previously impeccable record and had shown “obvious remorse”.
He said that any sentence he imposed could “never mend the broken hearts in this case”.
Howarth received a three-year jail sentence but was told she would only serve half, and perhaps less than that, behind bars before being released on prison licence.
She was given a 30-month driving ban which will effectively keep her off the roads for 12 months after being released from jail.
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