Kate Swale, 21, died after her boyfriend Jamie Hughes smashed his car into a tree while more than three times over the legal limit for ketamine – a drug she warned him to stop taking
A woman who warned her boyfriend his ketamine addiction “caused murder all the time” was killed two days later – after he swerved off a motorway and ploughed into a tree whilst high on the drug.
Kate Swale, 21, died after her partner Jamie Hughes lost control of his vehicle on the M62. Hughes was more than three times over the legal limit for ketamine and later told police he couldn’t remember the horror collision because it “felt like a dream”.
Liverpool Crown Court heard on Friday that Kate was sat in the front passenger seat of Hughes’ grey Vauxhall Corsa when the car suddenly drifted to the left and collided with a silver Mercedes C180 shortly after midnight on May 27, 2023.
Christopher Stables, prosecuting, said the driver of the latter vehicle, Thomas Parkinson, had been travelling from London to Liverpool at the time in order to catch a ferry to the Isle of Man. He said Hughes’ car came “out of nowhere” and smashed into the offside of his vehicle before veering off the motorway, rolling and “disappearing into the bushes”.
Mr Parkinson’s front seat passenger Susan Salamah said the incident had “all happened in a few seconds”, with the car having “hit a tree and bounced back onto the motorway”. Emergency services raced to the scene in minutes as cops described Hughes’ car as being “among the most heavily damaged” they had seen during their 14-year career.
On their arrival, the defendant was “shaking and unsteady on his feet, with blood on his hands and head” and “appeared to be in shock”, with his breath smelling of alcohol and his eyes “reddened and glazed”. He confirmed at the scene that he had used ketamine before driving as “a way of winding down after work and relaxing”, adding: “It sort of rocked something, I swerved and blacked out. I felt like it was a dream.”
Kate was given CPR by paramedics before being transferred to Whiston Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 3.33am due to a severe spinal injury. Mr Stables said: “Perhaps mercifully, this would have proved immediately fatal. It appears that death was instantaneous, and she would not have suffered.”
Hughes was meanwhile taken to Aintree Hospital, where he passed a breathalyser test for alcohol but was found to be 3.7 times over the limit for ketamine. During a subsequent interview on June 6, he told detectives he “could not remember how he had crashed” and only “recalled waking up and seeing his girlfriend” after his “body closed down”.
A series of WhatsApp and Instagram messages between him and Kate showed the pair had argued about Hughes’ ketamine addiction. She said in one message to him: “Blaming your sweaty ket addiction on me. Ta ra.” Mr Stables said Kate had “set certain conditions for them to stay together”, after which Hughes said he “couldn’t help his thoughts”.
Kate replied that “could if he stopped taking drugs”, then tragically, in a string of messages on May 25, only two days before her death, she said: “This ket situation causes murder all the time and you keep doing it.”
Hughes meanwhile was shown to have searched for “snorting ketamine”, “Special K drug effects, dangers and help” on the afternoon of May 24. The prosecution counsel added: “Here, a couple of days before the incident, the defendant was searching online appreciating that he had a ketamine problem.”
Jason Smith, defending, told the court: “The person responsible for this tragedy is Jamie Hughes, and he knows that. He does not seek pity or mercy for what has happened to him, for what has happened over the past 12 months and for the significant prison sentence. He is genuinely contrite and remorseful. He accepts that what he did was not just wrong, it was horrifically wrong. His actions that evening cannot be excused and cannot have any proper, reasonable explanation put forward.”
Hughes admitted causing death by dangerous driving and drug driving. He sat hunched over in the dock throughout the hearing and with his head in his hands at times before being jailed for six years and nine months.
Sentencing, Judge David Potter said: “The impact of your car when it left the carriageway was catastrophic. The impact of Kate’s death on the lives of the families and loved ones left behind is incalculable. She was clearly in the prime of her life. She was a loved and cherished daughter, granddaughter, niece and best friend. No sentence will reconcile her loved ones to their loss, nor will it cure their anguish.”
Hughes was also banned from driving for a total of eight years and five months and will be required to pass an extended retest before he is allowed back on the roads. He showed no reaction as he learned his sentence.
