A veteran trucker who killed a British dad in a car crash after he was distracted by porn on his phone sat in his vehicle with his head in his hands after the gruesome incident, police photos showed.
Neil Platt can be seen sitting in the driver’s seat, wearing a purple T-shirt and orange safety vest, covering his face after the fiery, May 2024 wreck on a major highway in Lancashire, about 40 minutes east of Liverpool.
Platt, 43, was “heavily distracted” and blew past stopped traffic before striking a Hyundai Kona driven by Danni Aitchison, a married father of two who was on the phone with his partner at the time of the fatal crash.
Aitchison’s car then rammed into a tanker and burst into flames.
The trucker had naked photos flashing on his X feed on his phone seconds before the collision and had “persistently viewed” WhatsApp, X, YouTube and TikTok during the three-hour journey he took from Scotland to Liverpool, authorities said in court.
Platt, who insisted he only looked at his phone to check how long the drive was taking, was sentenced to 10 years in prison Friday for the crash.
Judge Ian Unsworth KC tore into the veteran trucker in court.
“Your arrogant and selfish attitude to driving was quite breathtaking,” the judge said, according to the UK Sun. “You willingly and without any excuse chose to ignore the laws of the road.
“In short, you were a multi-ton accident waiting to happen,” he added, according to the outlet.
While there was no evidence Platt had been actively searching for porn before the crash, the judge found the trucker had “prioritized looking at social media” over the safety of everyone else on the road.
“You were distracted by doing something so mindblowingly stupid,” the judge said. “You were not paying attention to what was ahead but you were paying attention to your phone.”
Platt, from Bootle, a town outside Liverpool, had earlier pleaded guilty to causing Aitchison’s death by dangerous driving.
He will serve two-thirds of his sentence in custody and will be banned from driving for seven years.
Aitchison’s partner, Kerry, said she had been on the phone with him when the call suddenly cut.
“He was just coming home to me and the kids. Their hero has gone,” she said. “Telling the kids is and always will be the hardest thing I will do in my lifetime.”
His daughter Ella described him as “a good man driven by family and a pure love of life.”
Veteran truck driver Platt was “genuinely remorseful” and “hating himself” for the trauma he had caused, his attorney, Stephen McNally, said.
“Even though the defendant’s mobile phone was in a cradle and in front of him, this case provides an object lesson,” McNally said. “Even for the most experienced of drivers, not giving the road your undivided attention and concentration can have the most devastating consequences.”
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