Cambridgeshire hit-and-run crashes: Mother says family 'destroyed'

The mother of a motorcyclist killed in a hit-and-run nine months after his friend died in a similar crash said her family felt "absolutely destroyed".

Paul Wood, 23, was killed on his way to work as a hospital chef in 2019 on the A505 in Cambridgeshire.

His friend Mathew Smyth, 25, died in 2018 when he was hit by a courier who initially claimed he had struck a deer.

Helen Wood said her son, whose killer is due to be sentenced on Friday, used to visit Mr Smyth's grave daily.

She said the pair had been friends for nearly two decades and used to go out on their motorbikes together.

Mr Smyth, from Duxford, was an expectant father when he was killed by a van driver who pulled out into his path on the A1307 near Linton in Cambridgeshire.

The driver, Ricardas Taraska of Norwich, who was 23 when sentenced in 2018, was jailed for 14 months.

Mrs Wood said she was on holiday when Mr Smyth died and took a phone call from her son, who was "so upset".

"He just said 'mum, Matt's dead', and I said 'what do you mean Matt's dead":[]}