A drink-driver has been jailed for six years for killing a married couple in a head-on crash after a Christmas party. Sophie Hynd, 33, a former lecturer, previously pleaded guilty to causing the deaths of Jatinder Kaur, 48, and her husband Satwant Singh, 64, on December 19 last year on the B981 in Cluny, Scotland.
The couple's 10-year-old son was seriously injured in the incident. Hynd admitted causing death and serious injury by dangerous driving at a hearing at the High Court in Edinburgh last month.
Judge's remarks on fatal decision
Judge Michael O'Grady KC told Hynd: "Calculations suggest you had been drinking on and off for perhaps nine hours. I accept it was never your intention to drive and you had made arrangements to be collected, but those arrangements fell through and on returning home, for inexplicable reasons you took the wholly irresponsible and fateful decision to drive elsewhere."
Describing the consequences, he said: "A man and wife, mother and father, hard working, no doubt decent people going about their business doing the most ordinary of things in an instant had their lives cruelly snatched away. It was made worse by their children being there, their lives too have been snatched away in that they are forever changed."
He accepted her remorse is "genuine and profound", adding: "No punishment can ever reflect the loss of a life or interminable grief." Hynd was also disqualified from driving for 10 years.
College Christmas pub crawl
The court previously heard Hynd had been a lecturer at Fife College but lost her job following the crash, which happened at night on the last day of the college term. Staff had joined a Christmas lunch before heading to pubs in Kirkcaldy, where Hynd lived.
Advocate depute Lynsey Rodger said Hynd had been drinking alcohol including cider, spritz, Prosecco and possibly a Guinness shot. Ms Rodger said: "The accused was described as 'pretty merry' by one colleague and 'pretty drunk' by another."
Hynd decided to go home at around 10.30pm and was seen to be unsteady on her feet. After arriving home, she then decided to go to her boyfriend's house. At the same time, Ms Kaur was making deliveries in the family's Volkswagen Polo with her husband and sons.
Erratic driving and aftermath
Other motorists called 999 after seeing Hynd's Nissan Qashqai moving erratically and swerving into the opposing carriageway. Ms Rodger said: "The accused's vehicle crashed head-on, which caused both vehicles to come to a stop."
Others who had seen the erratic driving stopped to help, with police and paramedics later arriving. Ms Kaur was unresponsive and pronounced dead at the scene at around 11pm. Her husband was in a critical condition and taken to hospital, but medics later said his injuries were "not survivable" and he was pronounced dead on December 21.
At the scene, Hynd "smelled of alcohol and appeared to not know she had been in a collision", Ms Rodger said. When told she had been in a crash, she denied drinking and asked if everyone was alright and if she had hurt or killed anyone. She was arrested and charged on May 11 this year.
Defence lawyer Ewen Roy said Hynd is "consumed by feelings of guilt and remorse" and is experiencing a "level of mental anguish rarely seen in this court". He said: "Sophie Hynd's decision to drive that night had consequences leading to a lifetime of loss and grief and that is a burden that she clearly struggles to bear." He added the events will "haunt her forever".
In a statement released through law firm Digby Brown, Jatinder and Satwant's three children said: "We could never have prepared for losing our parents in this way. It's incredibly difficult to accept they won't be there to share the important milestones in our lives. We will miss them more than words can express, but we'll carry their love and everything they taught us for the rest of our lives."
