A drunk driver who killed a woman when he smashed into a rickshaw on New Kent Road last summer has been jailed.
Sophie Strickland, 31, from Wales, died in the Elephant and Castle collision at 4.10am, on 10 July 2022, as she visited the capital to celebrate her birthday with friends.
Luis Balcazar Soto, 24, from Elephant and Castle, was sentenced to nine years and nine months after pleading guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving, among other offences.
Ms Strickland had been on her way to her hotel with her friend Jade Redford when they stopped to use a cash machine.
Soto’s car then smashed into the rickshaw just after Ms Strickland got back in, throwing her from it.
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According to the BBC, Ms Redford, who came back to find her friend lying in the wreckage, told the court: “I knew all I could do was sit there with Sophie, hold her, stroke her hair and tell her how much she was loved – and that memory haunts me every day.”
In a statement read by prosecutor Fiona Robertson, the victim’s mother Glynis Strickland reportedly said: “Sophie was my only daughter and was the most beautiful thing in my life.
“As a mother, I can’t imagine any greater pain in my life as losing a child I raised to a beautiful woman. In seconds, my life [was] devastated.”
The collision also meant rickshaw driver Tanzir Ahmed, in his 30s, was taken to hospital with a suspected broken arm.
Soto was also food guilty of acting in breach of a restraining order, and breaching a suspended sentence at Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday, November 1.