Durham A1 fatal crash: Lorry driver's jail term 'not unduly lenient'

A lorry driver who killed three people in a crash will not have his sentence referred to the Court of Appeal to determine whether it was too lenient.

Ion Onut, 41, admitted causing death by dangerous driving and was jailed in January for eight years and 10 months.

Three people died in the A1(M) crash in County Durham last July.

But the Attorney General's office said Onut's sentence did not meet the criteria for reconsideration under the Unduly Lenient Sentence Scheme.

It said a sentence could only be referred to the Court of Appeal if it was "not just lenient but unduly so".

The judge would need to have made "a gross error" or imposed a sentence "outside the range of sentences reasonably available" in the circumstances.

"The threshold is a high one, and the test was not met in this case," a spokesperson said.

Durham Crown Court heard Onut had been browsing dating sites on his phone for 40 minutes before the crash which killed David Daglish, 57, and Elaine Sullivan, 59, of Seaham, and Paul Mullen, 51, from Washington.

Phone records confirmed he had spent almost £50 engaging with users and was looking at profiles and editing his own while driving, the hearing was told.

Witnesses saw Onut, who had moved to Galashiels from Romania, driving erratically and weaving across lanes minutes before the collision.

Onut's lorry, which was carrying fertiliser, was travelling at 58mph when it hit a line of stationary traffic and burst into flames.

Three other people were seriously injured in the crash, which involved two lorries and four cars.

Sentencing Onut, Judge James Adkin said it would have been "bad enough" if he had been asleep at the wheel but he had been "trawling the internet on dating sites looking for casual sexual partners".

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