A WOMAN found out her cyclist husband had died in a crash with a phone app automated text while in the bath at home.

Paula Overton, 32, said the Garmin watch’s message told her Ben, 29, had been in an accident and gave the co-ordinates.
Paula Overton found out her cyclist husband Ben had died in a crash with a phone app automated text while in the bath at homeCredit: SWNS
 
Ben died after a head-on smash in Crawley, West Sussex, in 2022Credit: SWNS
A tracking app showed he was not moving. Paula said: “I was so scared.”

Ben died after a head-on smash in Crawley, West Sussex, in 2022.

With no CCTV and no witnesses, the Crown Prosecution Service told Ben’s family that there was not enough evidence to prosecute the driver that hit him.

But after an investigation by solicitors against the driver’s insurers, the defendant accepted partial liability earlier this year.

Recalling the day she lost Ben, Paula told how she knew something was wrong before police had even knocked on her door.

She said: “It was just normal day. Ben gave me a kiss on the forehead and went off to work. He messaged me during the day to let me know that he’d booked some annual leave around my birthday, so that we could go to Cyprus.

“I would finish work and get home before him, so I went for a bath. I was laid in the bath, when my phone went. It was this automated message that said, ‘Benjamin Overton’s Garmin device has detected an incident’. Then it gave me the coordinates.

“I thought it was a really weird message to receive so I decided to check a tracking app we had for each other called Life 360.

“I would sometimes check it so I knew where he was on his way home, and I could have dinner ready for when he got in – but also for safety reasons as well.

“Normally it showed a map, and it had a little pinpoint where Ben was. I expected that pinpoint to be moving along, but it was just stationary in the middle of the road.

“Every possible scenario started running through my mind, I thought his phone could have fallen out his pocket or he could have been in an accident. I got out of the bath, wrote down the coordinates and I called 999, I was just so scared.

“I had no idea what to think. I was just pacing around the flat waiting to hear and then they called back 10 minutes later and said ‘we can confirm that there has been an accident’. I asked ‘is he alive’? And they said ‘we don’t have that information at the moment’.

“About an hour later a policeman turned up at my door, and I just knew it wasn’t good news. I said ‘he’s dead, isn’t he?’ And he just gave me a hug.”

But the CPS decided there was not sufficient evidence to charge the driver – and despite reviewing the case three times, it was finally dropped by the CPS and police late last year.

The decision meant that Ben’s inquest could take place in February this year – four years after his death.

After the inquest, Fletchers Solicitors pursued a case against the driver’s insurers and partial liability was agreed.

Paula said: “Hearing that they had admitted partial liability allowed me to move on in some ways.

“I think I had the closure that I needed because in my heart, I had gathered what had happened. I know who was at fault, and I really strongly believe it was the driver.”

SOURCE: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/39380407/wife-found-husband-dead-after-phone-app-text/