Driver jailed for two deaths

A lorry driver who killed two school friends in a horror crash was today jailed for four-and-a-half years.

Judge Paul Glenn, sitting at Stafford Crown Court, said Robert Murray was preoccupied with and distracted by his new mobile phone, although not actually using it at the time of the accident.

"I cannot begin to appreciate the effect this has had on the lives of the families of those two girls," added the judge.

"And no sentence I pass can compensate for the loss of their lives. The last thing you intended to do when you drove on January 20 was to harm anyone at all."He also paid tribute to those who stopped at the scene and tried to help the girls.

Rebecca Casterton, 13, and Lauren Brooks, 12, died when Lauren's mother's Renault Clio, clipped by Murray's articulated lorry, was sent spinning and somersaulting over the central reservation of the A38 at Clay Mills, near Lichfield.

Murray, aged 51, of Summer Close, Wrockwardine Wood, Telford, was convicted by a jury in November of two charges of causing death by dangerous driving on January 20. He was also banned from driving for two years.

The earlier trial heard that moments before the crash Murray had been using his mobile phone to call his wife.

Rebecca, of Holly Road, Barton-under-Needwood, and Lauren, of Forest Road, Burton upon Trent, were both pupils of John Taylor High School in Barton-under-Needwood and on their way home.

Murray, who denied the charges, said the phone call had finished two minutes before the accident.