Driver on phone as bricks struck woman, court told

A lorry driver was on his phone when a pallet of bricks fell from the back of his vehicle and left a woman seriously injured, a court heard.

Chloe Evans, aged 23 at the time, was walking on Southampton Road, in Lyndhurst on 13 October 2022 when the load fell and struck her.

Slawomir Kotlowski was driving the HGV and has gone on trial at Southampton Crown Court charged with causing serious injury by careless driving.

The 41-year-old has denied the charges.

Prosecutor Matthew Lawson said if the defendant had been paying attention "the accident would never had happened".

He said at 11:35 BST Mr Kotlowski received a phone call while he was driving between Ashurst and Lyndhurst in the New Forest.

This call only ended after the bricks had fallen on Mrs Evans at 12:08, the court heard.

Mr Lawson said that during the course of this phone call the defendant used the hold feature on his work phone to switch between six other calls.

Mr Kotlowski had worked for Myers transport at the time for 10 years and had a clean drivers licence.

In a statement given to police on 31 October 2023 he said he was using the phone through a Bluetooth headset and the hands-free device in his lorry cab.

Mr Kotlowski, who is originally from Poland, said a colleague "had contacted him for advice as he was more experienced and his English was better".

He told police he was relaying his colleague's "problems" with their office.

Witnesses Robert Dilworth and Leon Palmer were travelling in a Ford van just behind Mr Kotlowski and noticed the rearmost strap holding the bricks was loose.

Mr Dilworth, who runs a building company, was driving and said he "panicked" and told Mr Palmer: "We’ve got to stop that lorry."

He added: "Someone’s going to get killed in Lyndhurst”.

Mr Palmer told the court the pair travelled behind the defendant for about "two miles" and Mr Dilworth was "constantly flashing his lights and beeping his horn to get the lorry to pull over".

Mr Dilworth said the defendant was driving safely and "the lorry was doing exactly what a lorry should have been doing, which was the speed limit".

Both witnesses said Mr Kotlowski did not react to their warnings.

The prosecution admitted that the defendant was not at fault for the strap on the lorry becoming loose and had in fact checked it on numerous occasions.

Mr Lawson said: "Once it had become loose and his vehicle was in a dangerous position he was repeatedly given warnings by Mr Dilworth."

He said Mr Kotlowski "either did not see or chose to ignore" these warnings.

"Failure to see and react to Mr Dilworth is the careless driving that caused the accident," Mr Lawson said.

The trial continues.

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