"I HAVE just got to get on with my life without him. It doesn't get any easier."
That was the reaction of the mother of motorcyclist Daniel Eastwood after driver Jin Ma was found guilty of causing her son's death outside Tollbar Academy.
Ma, 42, of Nicholson Street, Cleethorpes, pleaded not guilty to driving without due care and attention on November 30 last year, but has been convicted by a jury following a trial at Grimsby Crown Court.
The jury was told how Ma – who has not driven since the collision and has trouble sleeping – was driving a silver Vauxhall Corsa in Station Road, New Waltham, just before 9am when it hit Mr Eastwood's Kawasaki motorbike. Father of two Mr Eastwood, 27, an electrician at Pleasure Island theme park in Cleethorpes, died from chest injuries caused by the impact.
The jury watched CCTV footage showing Ma's Corsa turning right into the main entrance of Tollbar Academy in Station Road, New Waltham, into the path of Mr Eastwood, who was riding in the middle of the road in between the two lanes of traffic.
Crash investigators used the CCTV footage to calculate that Mr Eastwood was travelling at a speed of around 45mph in a 30mph zone when the collision occurred.
Ma, who passed her driving test in May last year, told the court she had been late setting off to take her 13-year-old daughter to school after having to de-ice the windscreen of her car.
She decided during her journey to go into the school to explain to a teacher why her daughter was late and, unable to find a parking space at the side of the road, chose to drive into the main entrance of the academy.
Ma said she did not see Mr Eastwood at all prior to the collision. Crash investigator Stephen Jackson told the court that she would have had three seconds to see the motorcyclist before she committed to the turn.
Passing sentence, Judge David Tremberg told Ma that Mr Eastwood was "there to be seen" and that she should have seen him.
"Instead, you turned into his path moments before he reached the scene of the collision, thereby making an accident inevitable.
"In that short space of time your driving fell below that which would be expected of a competent and careful driver."
Ma, who had no previous convictions and a clean driving licence, was given a community order requiring her to do 150 hours' unpaid work, banned from driving for a year including a requirement to take a re-test, and made to pay £4,200 costs.
Speaking after the hearing, Mr Eastwood's distraught mum Nikki Brian said: "I thought it would be a relief that it's all over, but it doesn't matter what the sentence is really. It's not going to bring him back. A few hours of community work and a fine isn't going to bring him back.
"She walks away from here and goes back to her job. She just gets on with her life. I have just got to get on with my life without him. It doesn't get any easier."Follow us on Facebook and Twitter
