A Nottinghamshire mum has spoken of the pain of losing her son in a crash caused by a driver who got behind the wheel high on a mixture of drugs.
Christopher Jewkes had taken heroin and prescription drugs before getting in to his 4X4 and driving south along the A60 in August 2014.
Nicholas Highfield, from Mansfield Woodhouse, was cycling the opposite way along the route at Leeming Lane South in Mansfield when Jewkes lost control and ploughed into him.
Jewkes, 35, was sentenced to seven years and three months in prison on Tuesday for causing death by careless driving while under the influence of drugs.
After the hearing at Nottingham Crown Court, Nicholas’s mum Frances said: “I have an excruciating pain in my heart. I have good days and I have very bad days. I cry a lot, even now.”
One witness had described seeing Jewkes’ green Izuzu speeding and skidding before the front end mounted the pavement and grass verge outside the Miners Rescue Service, close to where he hit Nicholas.
A number of people who saw the aftermath of the crash rushed to Nicholas’s aid until emergency services arrived, but medics couldn’t save him.
After the sentencing Nicholas’s mum Frances released a statement saying: “When the police knock at your door in the early hours you know something is wrong. But what they tell you is still unbelievable.
“My son Nick was dead. How could that be true? I had spoken to him only a few hours earlier. He was my youngest son and I saw him every day. We depended on him so much.”
She added: “I have an excruciating pain in my heart. I have good days and I have very bad days. I cry a lot, even now. I talk to Nick every day but there have been times when I was so upset and angry that I could not go to where his ashes are scattered and for that I felt guilty.
“Leslie, Nick’s dad had such a great relationship with him. He was inconsolable and unable to get out of bed for the first few days after the news.
“Nick had lunch with us every day and when he left he would always give me a bear hug and say ‘I love you mum’. I enjoyed our jokes, his humour. He will never say that again, he will never hug me again. The person driving that car took that away from me and I will never forgive that ever.”
Jewkes blew a negative breath test for alcohol at the roadside. But a police officer suspected that he was under the influence of drugs and put him through a different test, which he failed.
Jewkes, formerly of Tudor Court, Selston, was also disqualified from driving for 10 years. He had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing in May.
Det Sgt James Greely from Notts Police said: “There may have been a perception in the past that it’s alcohol which makes driving dangerous but as today’s sentence and the tragic events that led to it prove, taking drugs and getting behind the wheel can be deadly.”
