A diabetic driver who killed a woman after suffering a blackout was jailed for four-and-a-half years yesterday. He was told that a lump of sugar could have prevented the tragedy and that he had grossly mismanaged his condition.

Philip Willey, 46, was driving home in Penarth, South Wales, in May last year when his car mounted a kerb and struck a married couple who were out walking near their home.

Suzanne Meredith, 52, a district nurse, died of multiple injuries while her husband Julian, 55, suffered a shattered thigh bone, and now walks with a stick. He has also had an artificial elbow fitted and cannot fully straighten his right arm.

Paramedics who tested Willey’s blood sugar recorded a level of 1.9 millimoles per litre. The lowest recommended level for diabetics is four millimoles per litre. Witnesses described Willey’s driving of his Subaru Legacy as “psychotic and terrible”. One said that he was swerving like “a Formula One car warming up his tyres before a Grand Prix”.

Judge Christopher Llewellyn-Jones, QC, told Willey at Cardiff Crown Court that a lump of sugar could have averted the collision. He said that a gross mismanagement of his condition and failure to test his blood-sugar levels had caused the tragedy.

“If you had done that before you set off on this late afternoon, that reading undoubtedly would have shown that your blood sugar reading was low, and a lump of sugar and a short break would have prevented this tragic accident,” the judge said. “Because of that gross mismanagement of your diabetic condition, in my judgment, despite the fact you had managed to drive for some years, this was in fact just an accident waiting to happen.”

Willey, who had been driving home from his job at RAF St Athan, had admitted causing Ms Meredith’s death by dangerous driving. Peter Heywood, his lawyer, told the court: “He repeated to me time and time again that he wished it had been him and not Ms Meredith that died as a result of this accident. There’s not a day goes by where this doesn’t come back to visit him.” In police interviews, Willey said that “everything went blank” before he hit Mrs Meredith and her husband.

Outside the court, Mr Meredith, an engineering lecturer and consultant who has taken early retirement, said that he was relieved the case was over. “I’m satisfied with the sentence. If anything good can come out of this, it’s to send a message to the public that they have got to take responsibility for their actions. They can’t blame everyone else.”

He spoke of the “irony” of his wife’s death. A certificate showing that Mrs Meredith had passed a module on diabetes on a degree course arrived at the couple’s home in Sully, South Wales, days after Mr Meredith was released from hospital.

The couple lived only a mile away from where the accident happened and had three children, Justin, 27, Andrew, 25, and Gemma, 22. Justin Meredith said that he had been expecting “a token prison sentence” and was pleased with the one the judge handed out.

He said outside the court: “It was amazing to see the judge taking it so seriously and realising the full impact it’s had, and the fact that the negligence was an accident waiting to happen.”

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