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| Lorry driver jailed over four-death A34 crash | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| A lorry driver who hit and killed a mother and three children while using his phone has been jailed for 10 years. | |
| Tomasz Kroker smashed into Tracy Houghton's car, which had her sons, Ethan, 13, and Joshua, 11, inside, and her partner's daughter, Aimee Goldsmith, 11. | |
| Judge Maura McGowan said his attention had been so poor he "might as well have had his eyes closed". | |
| Kroker was scrolling through music selections at the time of the crash. | |
| Some family members left the court as the prosecution began to show photos of the crash scene and video from the lorry's cab camera. | |
| Others were reduced to tears as video of the fatal collision on the A34 near Newbury in Berkshire was shown. | |
| Less than a second before the impact, an onboard camera showed Kroker "looking up with sudden horror on his face.....it was too late to take any avoiding action," the court heard. | |
| He hit one car, flipping it onto its back and down an embankment, leaving its driver with injuries including a broken back. | |
| A van which was next in the queue of stationary traffic was driven forward "like a battering ram", the court heard. | |
| The car in which Ms Houghton, 45, and her three children were travelling in was pushed under a lorry, compressing it to a third of its normal size, Reading Crown Court was told. | |
| Kroker, from Trajan Walk, Andover, Hampshire, pleaded guilty to four counts of causing death by dangerous driving on 10 October. |