A court in the United Kingdom has sentenced a lorry driver to 10 years in prison after he caused a deadly motorway crash while being “heavily distracted” by pornography on his phone.

The driver, Neil Platt, was behind the wheel of a heavy goods vehicle (HGV) near junction four of the M58 in Skelmersdale, Lancashire, in May last year. He was watching videos and scrolling through social media on his phone when his truck ploughed into a stationary Hyundai Kona.

Inside the car was Danny Aitchison, 46, a father of two. The impact pushed his vehicle into the back of a tanker, causing it to burst into flames. Aitchison died instantly.

While announcing the jail term, the judge strongly criticized Platt’s actions. The court said, “Your arrogant and selfish attitude to driving was quite breathtaking. You willingly and without any excuse chose to ignore the laws of the road. This was not a one-off glance on your phone… you were looking at such things as X, TikTok, and YouTube.”

Platt initially told officers that he had only touched his phone briefly to check travel times. However, investigators later discovered from phone data and an in-cab camera that he had been continuously scrolling through content, including explicit images, during his journey from Dumfries in Scotland to Liverpool.

During the trial, a victim impact statement from Aitchison’s 17-year-old daughter, Ella, was read out in court. She said, “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.”