M4 traffic news: Father dies after lorry driver fell asleep 'listening' to Netflix

James Emrys Lewis was travelling along the M4 in the early hours of September 24, 2020, but failed to notice that traffic had stopped ahead of him because of a rolling police roadblock.

He ploughed into the back of the stationary lorry in front having been in cruise control at 86 kilometres per hour (53 miles per hour),

He killed the front-seat passenger, 50-year-old Simon “Clodge” Clover, and seriously injured the driver Mark Henderson.

Mr Clover and Mr Henderson were on their way home at the time.

Traffic cameras capture traffic queuing on the M4 on September 24, 2020. Photo: Traffic England.

The lorry’s emergency braking system, which featured audible and visual alarms, activated before Lewis eventually hit the brakes just seven metres before impact and at only 24% pressure.

Reading a victim statement to the court on behalf of her mother, Mr Clover’s daughter, Rebecca, said that the family haven’t been able to bring themselves to wash his pillowcase.

The mother’s statement described how she was sitting at the dining room table at their home in Cardiff, wondering where her husband was, when she saw a police car driving slowly past.

“I knew they were coming for us.

In 2020, police released a photo of Simon Clover, who died in the crash.

“I dropped to the floor and was screaming. We will remember that day for the rest of our lives.

“We are struggling to understand and come to terms with [what happened]. We are still waiting for him to come home and tell us he was working away.

“Knowing we will never see him again is the worst feeling in the world.”

“I feel like we are the ones who were handed a life sentence,” Rebecca continued, reading from the statement, occasionally looking to Lewis sat in the dock.

“We are the ones who have lost the most important person in our lives.

“No matter of justice will be good enough. I’ve lost my soul mate, the love of my life and my children have lost their father. We are devastated beyond repair.”

Mr Henderson suffered a fracture to the left side of his pelvis, which was fixed with screws and a metal plate, a fracture to his ribs on the left of his body, a dislocated left knee which required two operations and a laceration to his spleen.

He also suffered soft tissue injuries to his left heel which required rebuilding surgery.

In all, he spent two months in hospital initially, before returning for a further month. On his return, he caught Covid.

“I struggled to put into words the impact this has had on myself and my family,” he said in a statement read to the court by prosecutor Rob Welling.

“The events of that morning will live with me for the rest of my life. I lost not just a friend and colleague that morning, but I lost myself too.”

Earlier, Mr Welling had said that the night of the crash had been a “double tragedy”.

He said there was already a fatal crash on the eastbound carriageway of the M4, between junctions 17 and 18, which caused police to shut the entire motorway.

Already down to one lane because of overnight road works, a rolling roadblock was initiated at around 2.20am, an hour before the crash.

An investigation later concluded that at around 3.21am, Mr Henderson noticed the line of traffic, braking 1.2 kilometres out from the collision site.

“The defendant, driving his Scania articulated lorry, failed to notice the single line of traffic ahead of him and he struck Mr Henderson’s vehicle from behind.

“It was crushed catastrophically between the defendant’s lorry and another lorry ahead of him.”

Even the driver of the lorry ahead of Mr Henderson and Mr Clover was signed off work for three weeks after injuries to his neck, back, ribs and jaw.

Mr Welling said that Lewis’s iPad was streaming a Netflix show at the time, but Lewis claimed that it was in his bag and he was listening to it.

“The conclusion is this: for whatever reason the defendant did not pay attention to the road ahead of him for in excess of one minute. He said that he was asleep and the evidence may support that.”

Mitigating, James Hartson said: “Nothing that I say in mitigation is intended to minimise the seriousness or impact at all on the families of Mr Clover or Mr Henderson.”

Lewis, of Pretoria Road, Tonyrefail, Wales, was of “positively good character”, he said, without a previous conviction, caution or endorsement on his licence.

He added he served as a paratrooper in Iraq and Afghanistan, and was described by his commanding officer as a “talented soldier and a man of integrity”.

“He knows that this single incident that fateful morning will define him and that is a shame as far as his otherwise impeccable life has been and is concerned,” Mr Hartson concluded.

Sentencing Lewis in front of a packed public gallery at Swindon Crown Court, Judge Jason Taylor QC said that the 38-year-old should have noticed what was going on ahead of him.

“Your basis of plea states that you had fallen asleep, such a simple action however has had a devastating impact on the two families.

“Not a single person in this courtroom could have failed to be moved by the raw emotion [of the victim statements].

“Nothing I do or say can assuage their grief, anger or sense of loss.

“This accident was wholly pointless and utterly avoidable, and you are solely responsible for that.”

Judge Taylor jailed Lewis for five years and two months, after giving 25% discount for his early plea.

He was also banned from driving for five years, extended by 31 months to take into account the period he will spend in custody.

Lewis must also take an extended retest before he is allowed to hold a licence again.