He swigged champagne as he drove

A driver who swigged champagne and sent a photo on his mobile phone as he drove a truck has been jailed. Mason James Cowgill, 27, also rolled a cigarette and texted and phoned his friend while heading towards a crossroads with a major road, said Kelly Sherif, prosecuting. He ploughed into the back of a stationary car, writing it off.

Inside was a family with three children on a trip to North Yorkshire. “Do you pose a risk to the public? You do in terms of driving,” Judge Simon Hickey told Cowgill at York Crown Court.

The family had been waiting to turn and indicating they were about to do so. “You were looking down at your phone,” the judge said. “Certainly they were there to be seen, and they were not.” He jailed Cowgill for 16 months, banned him from driving for two years and eight months and ordered him to take an extended driving test before driving alone again.

Ms Sherif said less than three weeks before the crash, Cowgill had carried out a crime spree in Harrogate, stealing among things, Chablis and prosecco from Tesco and wine from the White Hart Hotel in Cold Bath Road. Cowgill, of Mickle Hill Mews, Gargrave, Skipton, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, two shop thefts and hotel burglary. He had a previous conviction for drink driving when the judge said he had been substantially over the drink drive limit and was on a suspended prison sentence for arson and malicious communication when he carried out his latest offences, the court heard.

Ms Sheriff said the family on holiday were at the end of a queue of stationary traffic as they waited at the junction of the B6255 and A65 in Ingleton in the Western Yorkshire Dales at 11am on June 7. They were there for about half a minute before Cowgill’s truck came down the B6255 and hit the rear of their car forcefully. None of the family was injured but their car was so badly damaged they had to return home via public transport, she said.

On May 20, Cowgill, armed with tools to remove security tags from shop items, took clothes and other items from TK Maxx in Harrogate . He also used the knowledge he had gained delivering items to the hotel to raid it for wine and meat. For Cowgill, Oliver Connor said he had been going through a difficult time because of financial problems and a dispute with his father and was drinking.

He had gone to Harrogate for a “change of scenery”.

Since then he had tackled his drink and drug issues, got himself a promise of a job and had been taking medication to deal with his depression and anxiety.