Widow forced to kiss husband goodbye in road as he was killed by driver 'singing to her music'

A driver was “singing along” to music when he ploughed into a motorbike rider just after his widow kissed him goodbye for the day.

Lynda Hewitt heard the horrific sound of the car smashing into her husband Robert’s bike just a few feet from their home in Lincolnshire. She knew he was travelling home, so checked his location on a tracking app after hearing the awful sound while out in the garden.

Ruth Upsall, 28, drove straight into his motorcycle without seeing him. The victim, who was 64 years old, had been indicating onto the A52 at Frampton Fen at the time of the collision.

In a victim impact statement, Mrs Hewitt told Lincoln Crown Court: “I had to lean down in the road to kiss my husband of over 40 years goodbye”.

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Speaking on behalf of the prosecution, Jon Dee said Mrs Hewitt checked the app and rushed to the scene. When she arrived, she found her husband dead.

According to the prosecution, the crash was most likely caused by a moment of inattention. The motorbike had “stopped for some time with the indicator illuminated”. After the crash, Upsall remained at the scene but Mr Hewitt was pronounced dead at the scene after suffering fatal neck and head injuries. During her police interviews, Upsall claimed to have braked after not seeing him until she was a few car lengths away.

"There was music and she was singing along," Mr Dee said. At her first court appearance, Upsall pleaded guilty of causing death by careless driving. Reading out her victim impact statement, Mrs Hewitt called her husband her “soul mate”. The couple had tied the knot after knowing each other for just three weeks.

She recalled the horror moment in which she heard the catastrophic sound of the crash and the air ambulance flying down. Lawyers for Upsall, who works as a mental health charity worker, argued she should get a suspended sentence.

She was jailed for 10 months on Thursday. Recorder John Philpotts said that though speed was not a factor, he had to consider her previous speeding conviction.