A young bank worker who caused a fatal accident by sending a text message on her mobile phone while driving at 70mph on a rainy night was jailed yesterday for four years.

Rachel Begg, 19, who hoped to become an accountant, used her phone 9 times during a 15-minute journey before ploughing into the back of a car driven by a 64-year-old grandmother.

Maureen Waites, who was driving to Newcastle airport to pick up her sister, died from severe internal injuries after her Citroën spun and then hit a crash barrier on the A696 near the city.

Begg, who was driving to her home in nearby Ponteland after visiting a male friend, was taken to hospital with neck injuries and denied initially that she had been using the phone.

But Newcastle Crown Court was told that police checks showed that she had made and received calls during the journey, as well as reading and sending text messages.

Begg, who admitted causing death by dangerous driving, wept in the dock as the final moments before the accident last November were described in court.

Robert Woodcock, for the prosecution, said that as Begg drove north along the dual carriageway “at about 65-70mph, according to her, she was writing and sending text messages. Her eyes cannot have been on the road ahead, for if they had been she would have seen Mrs Waites.

“Her eyes must have been cast down and, having sent the last message, she realised she was horrifically close to Mrs Waites and probably panicked.”

The court heard that Begg had been driving for only 18 months and that her inexperience may have been a factor in her inability to avoid the collision. Her VW Polo hit the back of Mrs Waites’s car, which spun first one way and then the other as the two cars came together twice before the Citroën smashed into the crash barrier. Mrs Waites, a hairdresser, died instantly.

Judge Milford said that Mrs Waites, from Wingate, Co Durham, had been with her 74-year-old husband, George, for almost 50 years, was the heart of her family and had been denied a long and productive retirement.

He sentenced Begg to four years in a young offender institution, banned her from driving for five years and ordered her to take an extended retest.

“The cause of this accident was that you failed to see her, until it was too late, for the simple reason that you had been sending a text message to your male friend,” he said. “To send a text message is even more perilous at night in a darkened car.”

Begg, who kept her head bowed throughout the hearing, had been given glowing references by colleagues at the HSBC Bank in Gosforth, Newcastle. Her former school teachers wrote of her sporting ability, her enthusiasm and her politeness.

Robert Adams, in mitigation, said that Begg had suffered posttraumatic stress disorder and nightmares since the crash, for which she was greatly remorseful. “This was a terrible tragedy. Rachel Begg knows and recognises that it was entirely her fault,” he said.

Brake, the national road safety charity, codemned the four-year sentence as “deplorably low”. The maximum jail sentence for causing death by dangerous driving is 14 years.

Josh Townsend, Brake’s head of education, said: “Rachel Begg will probably be free in just two years. A woman has lost her life and a family has been devastated by her violent and sudden death, all for the sake of sending a text message. The justice system needs to get tough on drivers who take needless risks with terrible consequences.”

Times Recommends

• Fern Britton: 'I still can't see that I was wrong'
• Extreme cooking
• Easy French: Tarte Tatin