The tragic consequences of distracted driving were laid bare in a Lancashire courtroom this week, as Neil Platt, a 43-year-old lorry driver from Bootle, Merseyside, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for causing the death of Danny Aitchison, a devoted father of two, in a catastrophic motorway crash. The sentencing, delivered on September 19, 2025, at Preston Crown Court, followed Platt’s guilty plea to causing death by dangerous driving—a charge stemming from a collision that occurred on May 17, 2024, near junction four of the M58 at Skelmersdale, Lancashire.
According to Lancashire Constabulary and corroborated by reports from BBC, ITV, and other outlets, Platt was not only scrolling through his phone but was also viewing pornographic images on the social media app X just seconds before his HGV (heavy goods vehicle) slammed into the stationary Hyundai Kona driven by 46-year-old Danny Aitchison. The crash, which happened at around 1pm, pushed Aitchison’s car into the back of a tanker, causing it to burst into flames and killing him instantly.
Dashcam footage and phone analysis, as detailed in court and reported by the BBC, revealed that Platt had persistently viewed content on various apps—including X, Facebook, WhatsApp, TikTok, and YouTube—throughout his three-hour journey from Dumfries, Scotland, back to Liverpool. The in-cab camera showed Platt’s eyes glued to his phone in a dashboard cradle, with only fleeting glances at the road ahead during the critical moments leading up to the crash. Investigators determined that Platt applied his brakes only 35 meters away from the queue—just 1.5 seconds before impact—when traveling at 54 to 57 mph, leaving no chance to avoid disaster.
Initially, Platt claimed to officers at the scene that he had only touched his phone to check the time and his GPS. He stuck to this story during his formal police interview and in his defense statement. However, the mounting evidence from dashcam and phone data painted a starkly different picture. Judge Ian Unsworth KC, presiding over the case, was unsparing in his condemnation: “Your arrogant and selfish attitude to driving was quite breathtaking. You willingly and without any excuse chose to ignore the laws of the road.” The judge further described Platt as a “multi-tonne accident waiting to happen,” emphasizing the extraordinary recklessness of operating a massive vehicle while so distracted.
The courtroom heard heart-rending victim impact statements from Aitchison’s family. Kerry, his partner of 23 years and mother to their two children, Ella and Jack, recalled the moment she learned of Danny’s death. “I was in floods of tears and inconsolable,” she said, as reported by Lancashire police and the BBC. She described the ordinary, loving conversation she was having with Danny on a hands-free device when the call abruptly cut out. “He was just coming home to me and the kids. Their hero has gone.”
The family’s anguish was compounded by the circumstances of the crash and the aftermath. Their daughter Ella, 17 at the time of sentencing and preparing for her GCSE chemistry exam the day after the crash, shared her ongoing grief: “There was a death of all things since last year, what was and what could have been. Memories never made and plans never fulfilled,” she told the court, as quoted by ITV. “No, you didn’t mean to kill my dad and all that died alongside him, but you must have known your actions could have killed someone. We have lost a beacon of light in our family, and no matter how much I try to be like him I can’t restore what should never have been left so soon.”
Other family members echoed the profound loss. Danny’s mother, Jeanette Aitchison, described her son as “a family man, strong in body and mind. The loss of Danny has had a significant impact on me and my family. Quite simply, I feel devastated. The decision to drive while scrolling for a prolonged period of time on a mobile phone, let alone using a HGV, is utterly crazy.” Andrew Aitchison, Danny’s brother, remembered him as “the life of any party even if he didn’t know anyone else at the party.” The family also had to endure the harrowing wait for DNA tests to identify Danny’s remains before they could hold his funeral.
During sentencing, the court heard that Platt, a HGV driver for 15 years and himself a father, was “genuinely remorseful” and “hated himself” for the trauma he had caused, according to his defense counsel Stephen McNally. McNally argued that even though Platt’s phone was in a cradle and in front of him, this tragedy served as “an object lesson in demonstrating that even for the most experienced of drivers, not giving the road your undivided attention and concentration can have the most devastating consequences.”
The fatal collision occurred against a backdrop of additional motorway hazards. Police had earlier set up a rolling roadblock on the M58 after reports of a woman pedestrian on the carriageway. As traffic slowed and queued, Aitchison’s Hyundai came to a stop at the end of the line in lane one. Platt, however, failed to register the stationary vehicles until it was far too late, his attention consumed by his phone.
Judge Unsworth made it clear that there was no evidence Platt was specifically searching for pornography in the moments before the crash, but he had “prioritised looking at social media” over the safety of other road users. “You were distracted by doing something so mindblowingly stupid. You were not paying attention to what was ahead but you were paying attention to your phone. It beggars belief that while in charge of that multi-tonne vehicle you were looking at social media and scrolling X in which some of the content was pornographic in nature.”
The sentence handed down to Platt requires him to serve two-thirds of his 10-year term in custody, with a seven-year driving ban to follow upon his release. Detective Sergeant Matthew Davidson of Lancashire Police commented after the hearing, “I don’t doubt that Platt knew the devastation his actions could have caused. The dangers of using your phone whilst driving is so often spoken about, yet Platt recklessly ignored it. His selfish decision took the life of a father, partner, brother and son.”
This case has reignited debate in the UK about the dangers of distracted driving, particularly among professional drivers operating heavy vehicles. The Aitchison family’s devastation is a stark reminder that behind every statistic is a real person—a father, a partner, a child—whose absence leaves an irreplaceable void. The hope, echoed by all who heard the case, is that this tragedy will serve as a warning to others: no message, image, or social media feed is worth a life.
