Peter Morrison sentenced to seven years for killing man on M6 after texting behind wheel

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A football agent who sent a string of text messages before losing control of his car and killing a highways worker has been jailed for seven years.

Peter Morrison, 37, was driving his Mercedes ML350 4x4 on the M6 near Tebay in Cumbria, on 21 February 2016, when he hit and killed Adam Gibb, 51, and left his colleague, Paul Holroyd, now 53, paralysed from the chest down.

The two men, who were working for Highways England, had been standing watching the recovery of two vehicles which had crashed in what the court was told were “atrocious” weather conditions.

Jurors heard Morrison had been driving at a “grossly excessive” speed when his car swerved off the southbound carriageway, across the hard shoulder, rebounded off a rock and hit his victims.

Morrison had exchanged 25 texts during his 23-mile journey from Glasgow to Manchester, during which he drove at an average speed of 81mph. A 50mph limit was in place because of the poor weather conditions, which one motorist described as “almost like driving through a car wash”.

He sent his last text 96 seconds before the crash, to the Nottingham Forest footballer Zach Clough. The message contained a link to footage of a goal the striker had scored. Clough responded, in a text received by the agent’s phone after the crash: “Not bad was it, ha ha.”

Another conversation was held with the Manchester City player Cameron Humphreys. Another message received by Morrison, from a fellow agent, reached his phone 45 seconds before impact.

The former footballer, who played for Bolton Wanderers and Scunthorpe United before his career was cut short by injury, admitted careless driving but denied the more serious charge of dangerous driving. A jury at Carlisle crown court unanimously found him guilty of both offences in November.

Sentencing the father of one at Liverpool crown court on Friday, Mr Justice William Davis told Morrison the jail term he was imposing did not begin to reflect “the true value of the lives you have wrecked”.

“In my view, you were significantly distracted by your mobile phone and allowed yourself to be so,” he said.

In a letter to the court, Morrison stated: “I will punish myself mentally for this until the day I die.”

He was also handed an eight-year driving ban.