Moment police arrest 'drunkest driver' ever seen, who ran over and killed student, 20 in horror crash
24 November 2022, 16:53 | Updated: 24 November 2022, 16:54
This is the moment police arrested "the drunkest driver" they had ever seen, after he ran over and killed a 20-year-old university student carrying home sunflowers.
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Malcolm Waite, 68, mounted the pavement and knocked down a 16-year-old girl and Fenella Hawes, 20, who died at the scene of the crash.
The two young women had been walking home from work together on July 31 when Waite piled into them on the A149 Wayford Road in Stalham, near Norwich.
Waite was sentenced to eight years in prison after pleading guilty to causing death by dangerous driving, and disqualified from driving for another seven years on top.
Drink driver belligerently rants at Norfolk Constabulary officer in bodycam footage
Body-worn footage released by police shows Waite slurring his words as he is arrested after the crash.
A court heard how the driver did not stop after smashing into Ms Hawes and the 16-year-old, carrying on before colliding with a tree and coming to a halt.
He stank of alcohol, but refused to take a breathalyser test by the side of the road.
Officers arrested him and took him to Great Yarmouth Police station, where he was found to have 120 micrograms of alcohol in his breath - and police believe this would have been about 158 micrograms if taken at the roadside after the crash.
The legal limit is 35 micrograms.
Police found that his vehicle was not faulty, and the weather conditions were fine.
PC Callum Walchester, who arrested Waite at the scene of the collision, said: “I’ve been a PC for 10 years and worked in roads policing for almost six years, and he was the drunkest person I have ever seen behind the wheel of a car.”
Fenella’s mother Margaret said she cries every day thinking about her daughter.
“Every day I sob, when I wake up, throughout the day at random times with seemingly no reason and when I go to bed at night," she said.
"I picture her walking along, so happy carrying sunflowers for me and then being hit by the car.
"I sob because I will never see Fenella again, I will never see her radiant smile or hear her laugh, I will never talk with her about her day or about her plans for the future, I will never help cheer her up when she is sad or gossip with her, I will never go on long walks with her again…I will never be able to sit with her in front of our fire…it will never be the same again.
“I sob for the future that she doesn't have because a drunken man chose to get into a car, knowing that this was a weapon that could kill someone, and indeed it did it killed my 20-year-old daughter.
She added: "She was a young adult beginning her life and her bright future was taken out in a few seconds because of someone who did not think or did not care.
"I sob because she was so happy: she was so lovely inside and out she was so alive and now she isn't here, and never will be again. I never had a chance to say goodbye.”
