The mother of a “kind and loving” teenager who died in a horror car crash has spoken of the anguish of losing her son and anger that his killer was not given a harsher sentence.
Evie Wiles, 25, was jailed on Friday for her role in a collision which led to the death of Christopher Arnett, 14, who was walking home from school in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, on February 2, 2023.
Luton Crown Court heard that Wiles had jumped a red light at a junction in her Seat Leon and was distracted sending WhatsApp messages to her partner, who she was driving to collect.
She was sentenced to five and a half years in prison, but was told by Judge Andrew Hatton she could be released on licence after serving half of this.
Wiles, of Lockers Park Lane, was also banned from driving for five years, with an extension of 30 months "intended to ensure that on your release you're subject to a ban of around five years".
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But Christopher’s mother Claire Arnett has hit out at the length of Wiles’s jail term, accusing her of “showing no remorse”.
“It is a joke for what she has done. You would get more for burglary,” the school teacher told The Standard. “She has ruined our lives. I don’t want to live in a country where that’s an acceptable thing to do.”
Speaking in harrowing detail about Christopher’s final moments in hospital, Ms Arnett described seeing her son “degrading in front of us”, unable to hold his hand.
“It is an image I’ll never forget,” she said. “It is like something has replaced part of your heart with a stone.”
Ms Arnett, who also has a 15-year-old son with husband Lee, a shift manager for a distribution company, said their family have gone through “hell” following the death of Christopher, who was a “rainbow baby”.
Every day feels like Groundhog Day
Claire Arnett
“My mum is 82 and she has to watch me cry every Sunday,” Ms Arnett said, adding that “every day feels like Groundhog Day” — the name of the Hollywood film in which a weatherman is forced to relive February 2 repeatedly.
Ms Arnett went on to reveal: “We don’t sit at a table to eat anymore, because there is an elephant in the room where Christopher used to be.”
She said Christopher was a ‘beautiful’ boy who had joined the Scouts aged five and was about to start his Duke of Edinburgh Award.
“He was a geek like me,” Ms Arnett said. “He loved his Lego and Star Wars. He would move worms out of the road to stop them being run over. He was that kind of child.”
Ms Arnett joked that Christopher would have studied a “hacking degree” because of his love of video games and stop-motion animation.
Finding solace in teaching and “helping kids who might need a bit of emotional support”, Ms Arnett says Christopher’s death should teach motorists a ”life-changing” lesson to discourage phone use while driving.
“The devastation continues to this day. We have just got to learn to live with it,” she said. “But I don’t want this to happen to anybody else. Take every day as if it’s your last and stop rushing about it.”
Christopher’s father Lee said in a victim impact statement: “Since that day we’ve been living in a nightmare — the pain of losing Christopher is indescribable.
“His killer destroyed not just his life but all of our lives that day, and we will never forgive her for that and her utter lack of remorse and refusal to accept any wrongdoing.”
Osbornes Law’s Sam Collard, who represented Christopher's parents during the trial, added: "What Claire and Lee have been through is unimaginable and I am in awe of the dignified way in which they have conducted themselves throughout these proceedings, which must have been incredibly distressing."
Detective Sergeant Ben Heath, from the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Serious Collision Investigation Unit, said: “No sentence will ever make up for the unimaginable loss they have suffered.
“I hope this serves as a strong warning to drivers of the devastating consequences that dangerous driving can have.”