Drunkest driver ‘police have ever seen’ who killed student set for early release

A driver dubbed the ‘drunkest police had ever seen’ after he killed a university student could be set for early release.

Malcolm Waite, 72, was four times over the limit when he was found slurring his words next to a half-drunk bottle of vodka after hitting 20-year-old Fenella Hawes.

Fenella was carrying a bunch of sunflowers to give to her mum Margaret when Waite’s car mounted the pavement and ploughed into her on the Norfolk Broads.

Waite was branded ‘the drunkest person I have ever seen behind the wheel of a car’ after he was jailed for seven years at Norwich Crown Court in November 2022.

But he could be released after serving just half of that as part of the Government’s drive to reduce prison overcrowding.

Under the new Sentencing Act set to come into force in September, some 6,000 criminals were due to be released under the early prison release scheme.

It was paused by Andy Burnham yesterday amid outrage that two of PC Andrew Harper’s killers could be freed within weeks.

Mr Burnham said: ‘Keeping the public safe will always be my top priority.

‘I am working closely with the new Justice Secretary and have instructed my team to put a pause on the changes that were due to start in September.

‘No prisoners will be let out under this policy until we have conducted an urgent review and done everything we can to minimise risk to the public.

‘Where changes are needed, we will not hesitate to make them.’

The new prime minister’s review of the scheme will be conducted in the ‘coming days and weeks’ and decisions need to be made ‘very quickly’, a Labour minister said this morning.

Fenella’s family said the thought of seeing Waite back on the streets is ‘petrifying’ and called for any offenders who have caused a death to be exempt from early release.

They told The Telegraph four years in prison is no ‘equivalent to Fenella’s life at all’.

Fenella’s sister said: ‘She was 20 years old and had a whole life ahead of her. It doesn’t correlate.

‘It’s not a deterrent for anyone else to not drink drive because they can run someone over and only have to do four years for killing someone.’

In her victim impact statement read in court, their mum Margaret said: ‘Every day I sob, when I wake up, throughout the day at random times with seemingly no reason and when I go to bed at night.

‘I picture her walking along, so happy carrying sunflowers for me and then being hit by the car.

‘I sob because I will never see Fenella again. I will never see her radiant smile or hear her laugh. I will never talk with her about her day or about her plans for the future.

‘I sob for the future that she doesn’t have because a drunken man chose to get into a car, knowing that this was a weapon that could kill someone, and indeed it did. It killed my 20-year-old daughter.

‘She was a young adult beginning her life and her bright future was taken out in a few seconds because of someone who did not think or did not care.’

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