Mother jailed after children are killed in crash
A DRINK-DRIVING mother of four who killed two of her children when she crashed into a lorry has been jailed for more than four years.
Mary McCann, 35, hit the Scania HGV while driving northbound on the M1 near Milton Keynes at about 11.10pm on August 9 last year.
Lilly McCann, four, and Smaller Peter McCann, who was 10 that day, died at the scene, between junctions 14 and 15. A third passenger, a two-year-old girl, was not badly hurt, while the lorry driver, Simon Denton, was left with whiplash.
McCann appeared at Aylesbury Crown Court via videolink from HMP Bronzefield and wept throughout the hearing.
Stephen Shay, prosecuting, said: “Ms McCann was driving three children in a Vauxhall Astra car when at 11.12pm she collided with the rear of a lorry driven by Simon Denton.
“Tragically, two of her children were killed.”
Mr Shay told the court McCann was driving at 72mph in a 60 zone, with Lilly and Smaller not wearing their seatbelts. A witness heard McCann shout: “God, why didn’t I put their seatbelts on?” in the smash’s immediate aftermath, Mr Shay said.
McCann was arrested last September after failing to answer bail following the youngsters’ funerals, the court was told.
Laban Leake, defending, said his client has complex post-traumatic stress disorder.
Judge Francis Sheridan said: “There is no punishment commensurate with the loss of one’s two children and I accept that. The message must go out: don’t drive under the influence of alcohol.”
McCann, of Bamford Avenue, Derby, was jailed for 49 months and banned from driving for seven years and two weeks after admitting two counts of causing death by careless driving whilst under the influence of drink.