A Portuguese van driver who fell asleep at the wheel after driving for almost two days solid was jailed yesterday for causing a motorway crash that killed a British soldier.
Joao-Paolo Augusto Garcia, 32, had driven for 44 hours with just five hours’ rest on a 1,400-mile journey from Portugal to Tyne and Wear, to deliver a consignment of car radios.
He dozed off as he drove at 70mph along the A1 (M) near Boroughbridge, North Yorkshire, and ploughed into the back of a car parked on the hard shoulder.
The car’s driver, Air Trooper Richard Ashdown, 23, who had survived two tours of Afghanistan, was badly injured and died in hospital three days later.
His wife, Siobhan, who was eight weeks pregnant, and the newlywed pair’s seven-month-old daughter Leilah were uninjured in the crash last August, although Mrs Ashdown’s brother was also badly hurt.
York Crown Court heard Garcia wished he had died instead of Mr Ashdown, and had
been under huge *pressure from his boss to make the delivery.
The father of one was jailed for two years and eight months after admitting causing death by dangerous driving.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...stop-killed-soldier-pulled-pregnant-wife.html
