Truck Driver Sentenced for Fatal Crash That Killed Pregnant Nurse

A lorry driver who killed a pregnant nurse in a motorway crash has been jailed for almost three years.

Trevor Norgate's HGV drifted on to the hard shoulder of the M8, near Hermiston Gait in Edinburgh, where 41-year-old Evelyn Brown had stopped her car.

Ms Brown, who was 34 weeks pregnant, died from her injuries along with her unborn child.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard that Norgate, 58, from Bellshill in Lanarkshire, had become distracted before the crash on 18 December 2023.

Dashcam footage shown in court showed Ms Brown's car stationary on the hard shoulder with its lights on and Norgate's lorry veering off from a lane.

He was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison and was also banned from driving for four years and eight months.

Norgate had earlier pleaded guilty to a charge of causing death by dangerous driving.

Sentencing Norgate, Judge Lord Armstrong said: "No sentence that I can impose can in any sense be a measure of the value of the lives that have been lost nor provide a comfort to the family whose lives have been devastated.

Their lives have been dramatically altered for the poorer.

The court heard Norgate had six points on his licence following a previous offence related to using a mobile phone while driving.

The Nigeria-born Ms. Brown was the parent of two small kids.

On the day of the accident, she was working as an agency nurse after completing a 12-hour shift at East Lothian Community Hospital in Haddington.

Previous courtroom sessions were told that she had messaged her sibling via text to inform them that she was en route to her house.

Defense attorney David Nicolson KC stated that the truck driver was "extremely distraught" over the death of Ms. Brown.

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