A WIDOW has warned of the dangers of using a phone behind the wheel after her husband was killed by a bin lorry driver who was jailed for five years today.

Andrew Evans was killed in September 2013 when refuse worker, Adam Lipowski, crashed into the car he was travelling in.

Lipowski, of Walmer Close, Tilehurst, was convicted by a jury of causing death by dangerous driving at a trial in March at Oxford Crown Court.

The jury heard the 42-year-old had been behind the wheel of a 15-tonne Mercedes refuse truck and using his mobile phone in the moments before he hit a black Subaru at 36 mph. Mr Evans, 56, was the front seat passenger and was killed in the crash. Driver, Michael Jennings, was left with serious injuries.

After the sentencing Mr Evans' widow, Sally, said: "Stop and think before using your mobile while driving, you could kill an innocent person. Someone who has done you no harm and leaves a family devastated.”

Mrs Evans, of Station Road, Thatcham, said the family were still struggling to come to terms with his death.

She added: "Our grandchildren have lost their Grandad Ambulance. A granddad who always played jokes on them, a granddad who played games and always insisted he won. A granddad who got them over-excited just before their bed time. Rachel has lost her dad, a dad who loved her unconditionally, even when she was naughty as a child."

She described him as "a loving, caring, reliable, honest man."

"I no longer have a husband, no one to hold and love me, no one to smile at me and make me laugh, no one to support me physically with my disability or mentality. No one in the house that made it a home."

Lipowski denied causing death by dangerous driving on September 11, 2013 outside the entrance of the Oratory School in Woodcote, on the A4074.

Mr Recorder Nicholas Goodwin QC, sitting at Oxford Crown Court passed a five year prison sentence and disqualified Lipowski from driving for five years.