A MAN who was branded the “drunkest driver ever seen” after he killed a university student could be set for early release.
Malcolm Waite, 72, was four times over the legal limit and found with a half-drunk bottle of vodka after he hit Fenella Hawes, 20.
Waite’s car mounted the pavement before smashing into two pedestrians, Fenella and a teenage girl.
The Lancaster University student was walking with a bunch of sunflowers for her mum Margaret when Waite hit her and she died at the scene.
Waite then failed to stop and drove on for a mile, only coming to a halt when his Lexus RX SUV collided with a road sign and a tree.
Officers later found him slumped in the driver’s seat smelling strongly of alcohol.
He was jailed for eight years in 2022 after pleading guilty to causing death by dangerous driving after the crash on the A149 in Norfolk.
PC Callum Walchester told Norwich Crown Court at the time: “I’ve been a PC for 10 years and worked in roads policing for almost six years, and he was the drunkest person I have ever seen behind the wheel of a car.”
But the killer driver could be released after serving only half his sentence under the government’s attempts to reduce prison overcrowding.
The controversial early release scheme has been paused after it was revealed two of PC Andrew Harper’s killers could have been freed within weeks.
After mounting pressure, Andy Burnham said: “Keeping the public safe will always be my top priority.
“I am working closely with the new Justice Secretary and have instructed my team to put a pause on the changes that were due to start in September.
“No prisoners will be let out under this policy until we have conducted an urgent review and done everything we can to minimise risk to the public.
“Where changes are needed, we will not hesitate to make them.”
This means no prisoners will be released under the policy until ministers have completed the review.
If the scheme goes ahead, Waite could be one of more than 5,000 offenders, including killers, rapists and violent criminals, released on September 2.
Fenella’s family have said the thought of seeing him on the streets is “petrifying”.
They have called for anyone who has caused a death to be exempt from the scheme and added that an early release would be “no deterrent”.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Fenella’s sister said a four-year sentence would be no “equivalent to Fenella’s life at all”.
She continued: “She was 20 years old and had a whole life ahead of her. It doesn’t correlate.
“It’s not a deterrent for anyone else to not drink drive because they can run someone over and only have to do four years for killing someone.”
While he was in custody at Great Yarmouth Police Investigation Centre, some four hours after hitting the two women, Waite was recorded as having 120 micrograms of alcohol in his breath.
Officers calculated this would have been approximately 158 micrograms if taken at the roadside after the crash.
The legal limit is 35 micrograms per 100 millilitres.
A police investigation established Waite’s car was not faulty and the weather and road conditions were clear and fine on July 31, 2022.
During police interviews, Waite answered no comment to every question.
Fenella’s mum told the court in her victim personal statement: “Every day I sob, when I wake up, throughout the day at random times with seemingly no reason, and when I go to bed at night.
“I picture her walking along, so happy carrying sunflowers for me and then being hit by the car.
“I sob because I will never see Fenella again, I will never see her radiant smile or hear her laugh.”
She continued: “I sob because she was so happy: she was so lovely inside and out she was so alive and now she isn’t here, and never will be again. I never had a chance to say goodbye.”
