Text message driver killed two policemen

A woman driver who killed two policeman as she drove at over 100 mph while sending a mobile phone text message was jailed for 30 months in France today.

Angela Schala-Breme, a 33-year-old Swiss, received a harsher sentence than prosecutors in the eastern town of Thonon-les-Bains had requested.

The court ignored a plea from widow of one of the dead policemen.

Laurence Haignere, had asked that Schala-Breme be spared prison because that “would only deprive children of their mother”.

The court cited testimony from expert witnesses who said the defendant suffered from “immaturity” and ”abandonment anxiety”.

The defendant cried throughout the hearing and expressed regret for the crash that happened when she was five months pregnant and had two young children in the car with her.

She vowed “to never drive again”.

Schala-Breme said she had been following friends but lost sight of them. She had been trying to find them using text messages when her vehicle hit a police van, killing two officers and wounding two others.