Travel agent Cathryn Craven, 50, is claiming £700,000 compensation after the fatal crash
A divorcing wife whose estranged husband was killed by a speeding car is claiming £700,000 compensation – insisting he ‘clearly loved her’ and they would have got back together.
Travel agent Cathryn Craven, 50, left construction boss Jayson Craven, taking their younger children with her, after learning that he was having an affair in 2014, the High Court in London was told.
But he was hit and ‘killed instantly’ while crossing a dual carriageway in Coventry before the split could be finalised.
Motorist Terry Davies was jailed for four years at Coventry Crown Court in 2015, having been convicted of causing Mr Craven’s death by dangerous driving.
Mrs Craven, a mother-of-three, is now bringing a £700,000 claim against the driver from Coventry, claiming she was her 48-year-old husband’s ‘dependant’ despite their impending divorce.
She claims that she still ‘loved him deeply’ and that they probably would have got their marriage back on track had he not been killed.
The High Court heard that Mr Craven was killed while crossing the Fletchhamstead Highway in Coventry in June 2014 after an alcohol-fuelled night out.
Motorist Terry Davies (left) was jailed for four years in 2015, having been convicted of causing construction boss Jayson Craven’s (right) death by dangerous driving
He was hit by Davies’s Audi Quatro at 86mph, on a stretch of the road with a 40mph limit, said Mrs Craven’s barrister Marcus Grant.
He told Judge Jeremy Freedman that tensions between the couple ‘drove a wedge’ between them, and Mr Craven ‘began to look for physical affection elsewhere and began an affair’ in early 2014.
‘On discovering this, Mrs Craven left the family home taking the younger children with her’ and filed for divorce shortly afterwards, Mr Grant added.
A decree nisi was pronounced seven weeks after Mr Craven was killed, the application having been lodged whilst he still lived.
Mr Grant, however, argued that the couple would have saved their marriage and that Mrs Craven remained dependent on her husband.
Her ‘desire to be divorced from him would have been lessened to the point of extinction’ once she had released how badly off financially she would be without him, the barrister added.
Mr Craven was killed while crossing the Fletchhamstead Highway in Coventry in June 2014
Mr Craven, for his part, was ‘saying before his death about his own desire to save the marriage,’ said Mr Grant.
In the witness box, Mrs Craven said that her husband had been ‘trying to reconcile the marriage’ when he died. ‘He clearly loved me,’ she told Judge Freedman.
She said: ‘We had been through a lot of emotions. There had been sadness. He had been angry. He had been quiet and very loving. He sent me flowers at Christmas.’
Lawyers for Davies are denying the couple would have got back together or that Mrs Craven should be compensated as her husband’s dependant.
They say Mr Craven had cancelled the direct debit mortgage payments on the couple’s £475,000 five-bedroom detached home in Coventry, shortly before he was killed. The hearing continues.