Mobile phone lorry driver to be sentenced over crash deaths

A lorry driver who killed a mother and three children by ploughing into their stationary car while looking at his mobile phone at the wheel is due to be sentenced.

Tomasz Kroker, 30, smashed into the vehicle carrying Tracy Houghton, 45, her sons Josh Houghton, 11, Ethan Houghton,13, and stepdaughter Aimee Goldsmith, 11, while travelling at 50mph on August 10.

The four victims, all from Bedfordshire, died at the scene on the A34 dual carriageway north of Newbury in Berkshire.

A man was seriously injured and four other people were hurt in the horror smash.

Thames Valley Police said Kroker ploughed into a stationary queue of two lorries and four smaller vehicles stuck behind a "slow moving articulated lorry" near the villages of East and West Ilsley, shortly after 5.10pm.

Kroker, 30, from Trajan Walk, Andover, Hampshire, pleaded guilty to four counts of causing death by dangerous driving and one count of causing serious injury by dangerous driving at Reading Crown Court on October 10.

He is due to be sentenced at the same court on Monday.