County Durham crash: lorry driver jailed for killing three people on A1 sends chilling warning from prison

A lorry driver who was jailed after killing three people in a horror crash has sent a chilling warning from his prison cell about using a mobile phone at the wheel.

Ion Onut, 42, caused the death of three people in County Durham after accessing the internet on his device multiple times while driving.

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In a warning to others, Onut, who is currently serving a prison sentence for the incident, has detailed how the decision to use a mobile while driving drastically affected not only his life, but the lives of the families of those killed and injured.

What happened in the crash?

Onut had been driving from Cambridgeshire when the accident occured on the A1 in County Durham in July 2021.

Traffic at the time was slow-moving, with delays and a 50mph speed limit in place.

At his trial, the court heard that Onut had repeatedly ignored these warnings. The lorry driver was said to have been driving erratically, with a motorist nearby by believing that he was falling asleep at the wheel.

He then failed to slow down when moving forward and collided with the car in front, with a chain of subsequent collisons happening.

The subsequent crash resulted in a fireball, which instantly killed three people - Paul Mullen, 51, Elaine Sullivan, 59, and David Daglish, 57.

Eventually losing control of his vehicle, Onut veered off the road, with the lorry ending up around 100 metres from where the crash occured.

He was rescued from his burning cab by members of the public and later arrested by police at the scene.

The Galashiels resident had repeatedly used his mobile phone throughout his journey, with records showing that his device was in regular use for 40 minutes up until the crash.

Records also showed that, at the time of the collison, Onut was searching for adult dating sites while driving at speed which never dropped lower than 50mph.

What did Ion Onut say about the crash?

Onut is currently serving a prison sentence of eight year and 10 months, after pleading guilty to three counts of causing death by dangerous driving.

The former lorry driver has also been disqualified from driving for the next 14 years.

He said: “I have to live with this for the rest of my life. I never had a chance to apologise, to say sorry for what I had done to those who lost their loved ones, the people who were injured, the ones who suffer from flashbacks.

“By being on my phone for a long period of time and then realising the traffic ahead of me had stopped, I had absolutely zero chance to act and pull my brakes on.

“When I saw the videos of what happened it was unimaginable and hard to see. It was so disturbing knowing that was me in that lorry ploughing through the cars.”

What have family members of the victims said?

Junior Sullivan, whose parents, Elaine Sullivan and David Daglish died in the collision, has also spoken out about the tragedy.

He said: “I have no doubt he [Ion Onut] didn’t set out to kill some people but he made a conscious choice to use his mobile phone to do whatever he was doing. That is frustrating and ultimately it makes no difference in the grand scheme of things, neither of them can be brought back but I think he is in prison now and he has got to think about it every day.@

Shocking footage from the crash has been released by police, in order to issue a further plea to motorists to not used a mobile device while at the wheel.

Detective Constable Natalie Horner, from Durham Constabulary’s Collision Investigation Unit, said: “We hope this film highlights just how devastating using a mobile phone or other device at the wheel of a vehicle can be - in one split second, your life and other innocent people’s lives might never be the same again.

“Please, put the phone down while driving.”