A ‘cowardly and shameful’ man left his girlfriend to die on the road after she fell off his quad bike near a Gloucestershire village.
Alex Evans, 31, was riding on a single-seat quad bike with Grace Vater, 22, sat in the back when the vehicle overturned near Shipton Moyne.
Grace suffered a severe head injury as she lay unresponsive on Whitehouse Lane at about 2pm on December 23, 2023.
While passers-by rushed to help Grace, her boyfriend of five years fled the scene and returned home.
Evans was arrested later that day at home and taken into custody.
Grace was airlifted to hospital but died two days later at Southmead Hospital in Bristol on Christmas Day.
Known to her friends as Gracie, Grace’s mum said she was ‘always so kind and friendly to everyone she met’.
‘She was so caring, thoughtful, generous and bubbly. She was so happy all of the time and would do absolutely anything for anyone,’ she said.
‘Gracie was my best friend. Her loss is profound, and words cannot begin to convey just how much of a hole her death has left in my life.
‘Life will never be the same. I can’t believe I have to live the rest of my life like this, without her.’
Evans, a farmhand, had been riding the bike without a driver’s licence, having been disqualified two months before for driving while above the limit of controlled drugs.
He did not tell his employer he had been banned from driving following the April 2023 conviction, fearing it would put his job on the line.
Police found the quad bike, designed to be ridden by one person, behind a pallet door in an empty lean-to.
Evans pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving and driving whilst disqualified and uninsured.
Gloucester Crown Court heard that Evans left his girlfriend due to ‘panic and distress’.
But to Judge Rupert Lowe, this was a ‘cowardly and shameful act’. He stressed that as the driver, Evan should have known the risk of a vehicle being overloaded.
Evans’ defence barrister Matthew Harbinson said: ‘The fact is that had he known that there was such an inherent risk involved in allowing his partner, whom he loved, to ride on the back of his quad bike, he would never have allowed that practice to take place.
‘For him, it has been a tragedy, a matter of great personal loss and something that he will have to live with for the rest of his life.’
Evans, of Monks Drive, Corsham in Wiltshire, was sentenced on Thursday to two years in prison.
He was also banned from driving for six years.
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