A former college lecturer has been jailed for six years for causing the deaths of a husband and wife in a head-on crash while drink-driving after a Christmas party. Sophie Hynd, 33, previously pleaded guilty to causing the deaths of Jatinder Kaur, 48, and her husband Satwant Singh, 64, in a crash on the B981 in Cluny, on the eastern coast of Scotland, on December 19 last year.
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.
Sentencing and family impact
Hynd was jailed for six years when she returned to court for sentencing on Wednesday (7 October). She was also disqualified from driving for 10 years. Following the earlier hearing, the couple's children said they miss their parents "more than words can express".
Judge Michael O'Grady KC told her: "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."
Crash details
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. At the previous hearing, advocate depute Lynsey Rodger said staff had joined a Christmas lunch before heading to pubs in Kirkcaldy.
Ms Rodger said Hynd, who lived in Kirkcaldy, had been drinking alcohol including cider, spritz, Prosecco and possibly a Guinness shot. She 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 at home, she 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. Other motorists called 999 after seeing the Nissan Qashqai driven by Hynd moving erratically and swerving into the opposing carriageway.
Aftermath and victim statements
Ms Rodger said: "The accused's vehicle crashed head-on, which caused both vehicles to come to a stop." Others who had seen Hynd's erratic driving stopped to try and help, with police and paramedics later arriving at the scene. Ms Kaur was unresponsive and was pronounced dead at the scene at around 11pm.
Her husband was in a critical condition and taken to hospital where he was stabilised, however medics later said his injuries were "not survivable" and he was pronounced dead on December 21. Ms Rodger said at the scene Hynd "smelled of alcohol and appeared to not know she had been in a collision". She was arrested and charged on May 11 this year.
Defence lawyer Ewen Roy said on Wednesday that 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."
In a statement released through law firm Digby Brown after Hynd pleaded guilty, 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."
