There is nothing Catherine Davies longs for more in the world than to hug her son. She desperately wishes she could hold him close, bury her nose in his soft blond hair and breathe him in – that familiar smell of last night’s shampoo and muddy grass after rugby practice.
She dreams about touching his face, a face she has gazed at in wonder every day for ten years now, those rosy toddler cheeks faded, his gappy smile giving way to a handsome, cheeky grin.
But Catherine will never do any of these things again.
For on January 18, 2023, a horrific accident, caused by a speeding teenage driver using his mobile phone, caused her to suffer a catastrophic brain injury and irreparable spinal damage, which has left Catherine paralysed from the neck down. So severe were her injuries that doctors initially thought she wouldn’t survive.
Today, after almost two years in hospital and a life-saving operation which fused her neck back together, she is, remarkably, still here – but only just.
Catherine cannot breathe on her own, nor can she control her bladder or bowels, and she is fed through a tube as she can no longer eat or drink normally.
She has a team of round-the-clock carers to dress, wash and change her and, due to damage to her vocal cords in the accident, uses an ‘eye-gaze’ machine (similar to that used by Stephen Hawking) to communicate.
Not only has she been robbed of the chance to hug her only child, but she can no longer say ‘I love you’ – an agony no mother should have to bear.
Catherine Davies was left with catastrophic brain injury and paralysed from the neck down after a horrific road accident caused by a speeding teenage driver using his mobile phone
Catherine only just survived almost two years in hospital and a life-saving operation which fused her neck back together
This week, the driver of the car, 19-year-old George Taylor, who had held his licence for less than 12 weeks when he crashed into Catherine’s stationary car at a junction in East Tuddenham, Norfolk, was jailed for just two years and two months.
It’s a punishment Catherine, giving an exclusive interview to the Mail, says she finds ‘insulting’.
‘He took my whole life away and left me in a living nightmare,’ says the mother-of-one, 51, a former fitness instructor, through the technology she must now rely on to make herself heard.
‘I understand he may only have to serve half the sentence, so will be free in a year’s time to get on with his life, whereas I have been imprisoned for life.’
Towards the man who took everything from her, she adds, she feels ‘indescribable anger’.
The devastating repercussions of what happened, and how it shattered not only Catherine’s life but the lives of everyone around her, cannot be overstated.
She has lost the ability to run her beloved fitness business, been forced to leave the cottage where she lived with her son, and now faces a future stripped of all the things she used to love: city breaks, spa days with friends, windswept runs on the beach.
Her partner at the time of the accident, with whom she was planning to buy a house, ended their relationship by text message shortly after it happened. To compound Catherine’s misery further, her son’s father, from whom she separated four years ago, isn’t letting her see her son as much as she would like.
‘There is,’ she admits, ‘very little pleasure left in my life now.
‘I really miss the tactile side of being a mum and this destroys me. Understanding the nature of my injuries was absolutely terrifying. I cannot describe the fear. It was all-consuming.
‘I was overwhelmed by extreme anxiety, consumed by what I’d lost and what was facing me. It was like mourning your own death.’
Catherine and her family have, until now, not wanted to speak about their ordeal. Not only is it still raw, with Catherine suffering physical pain and daily fatigue from the accident, but communicating is extremely difficult.
Though she retains limited, weak speech, she is able to get the words out only when the cuff on her tracheostomy – a direct opening to the windpipe to help air reach the lungs – is deflated, which depletes her oxygen, leaving her exhausted.
However, with the help of her family, including her father, Jeremy, 76, a retired civil servant who has been by her side every minute of this unimaginable journey, she has bravely agreed to an interview, in the hope of warning others of the brutal impact dangerous driving can have.
This time two years ago, Catherine recalls, she was happier than she’d ever been.
Having studied hotel management in Norwich, she’d worked in fashion (including as a manager at Harrods and Jigsaw in London) before moving to P&O Cruises, working on ships around the Mediterranean and Caribbean, later qualifying as a fitness instructor.
As well as running her own bootcamp fitness classes, she worked as an estate planning consultant.
‘I was one of the top performers among my peers,’ she says. ‘I was working towards being promoted to a senior consultant. I loved my job and saw myself working there until retirement.
‘I was an early riser, as my days were so full, working full-time and running evening fitness classes as well as looking after my son for half the week. I’ve always been an energetic and sociable person.’
Catherine’s son was born in 2014. She doesn’t want to name him, nor does she want to identify his father, with whom she co-parents.
‘I always wanted to be a mum and get great joy from it,’ she says. ‘My son is the most important person to me in the world.
‘When [he] was with me, my time was focused on him, supporting with schoolwork and, in his free time, doing activities with him which were usually outside.
‘We would go on walks, visit the beach and meet up with friends who had children of a similar age. My life was wonderful and going in the right direction.’
On the morning of the accident in January 2023, Catherine was driving to a client meeting, having spent the previous night at her partner’s house nearby. At 10.57am, she stopped her blue Skoda Fabia at a junction on the A47, where she was indicating to turn right towards East Tuddenham, a village north-west of Norwich.
Catherine before the horror crash. As well as running her own bootcamp fitness classes, she worked as an estate planning consultant
George Taylor pleaded guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving
She didn’t know it at the time, but George Taylor, a tractor driver from Stretham in Cambridgeshire, was driving his VW Golf dangerously along the road behind her, on his way to college.
From 9.56am until he crashed, Taylor, then 17, used his phone nine times while driving, sending text messages, taking calls and making several horrifying videos showing himself steering with his knees, and overtaking other vehicles at speed.
Having admitted causing serious injury by dangerous driving, Taylor told Norwich Crown Court this week that he didn’t see Catherine’s car stopped in front of him at the junction.
‘My phone was on the cup holder,’ he said. ‘I moved it over to get my vape and there was a loud bang. I went from 60mph to 0mph.’
Catherine, who doesn’t remember anything from that morning, went into cardiac arrest at the scene and was given CPR by a passing paramedic.
She was then flown to Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital by air ambulance, where the extent of her injuries became clear.
‘I don’t recall the first few weeks, as I was not conscious,’ Catherine explains now. ‘My injuries were so serious that my family had been told I may not survive.
‘I needed life-saving surgery to stabilise my neck, but my health was so unstable that the surgeons were reluctant to carry it out.’
Indeed, Catherine’s horrified family were told there was a 50:50 chance she would die during the operation, which involved inserting metal rods into her neck – but they felt it was the only option.
Mercifully, it was a success and, from mid-February 2023, she was in a high-dependency unit, now conscious and trying desperately to come to terms with her new, awful reality.
She found herself hooked up to all sorts of machines, breathing through a ventilator and unable to feel anything beyond the tops of her shoulders.
‘My mind was racing with questions about all aspects of my life,’ she says. ‘How was I going to look after my son? How was I going to earn money and live? Knowing a machine is breathing for you is extremely scary.
‘I was terrified of being alone in case something happened, as I can’t move or call out for attention.’
In late June, Catherine was transferred to a spinal unit in Sheffield, where, she says, she felt ‘lonely’ and ‘very vulnerable’.
Hundreds of miles from her family, who are in Devon – her mother died several years ago but her father lives there with his second wife and her daughter – she began to feel scared.
Friends who had devised a rota to visit her stopped coming regularly, as it was too far. So did her son, whom she had been seeing twice a week.
‘I spent many days alone, lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. I was very depressed, anxious and frightened.’
A crowdfunding campaign, run by friends and family, raised more than £20,000 to buy the eye-gaze machine, so she could use eye movement to control a computer, communicate with her son and access social media.
More funding has come from a civil compensation claim, which has, to date, paid privately for a psychologist, occupational therapist, speech and language therapy, physiotherapy and a personal case manager, who supports Catherine every day.
But living with such complex needs is expensive and the family needs more. Their lawyers, Irwin Mitchell Solicitors, say it will be up to two years before the civil case is concluded and the full payout confirmed.
Catherine stayed in hospital until June this year, when she was discharged to a rented house with a team of 24/7 carers, but it quickly became clear that her care was inadequate and she was readmitted, very unwell.
Eventually, earlier this month, she was discharged for good.
Today, home looks very different to the cottage where this houseproud, super-fit working mum used to live.
With the help of her case manager, and several FaceTime property viewings, she found a barn for rent, which the landlord was happy to be adapted.
‘The adaptations have included changing the bathroom to a wet room, having a hoist and ceiling track fitted so that I can be transferred from my bedroom to the bathroom, and having level-access patio doors and decking fitted so I can easily access the back garden,’ she explains.
Taylor, then 17, used his phone nine times while driving, sending text messages, taking calls and making videos
Videos from Taylor showed him driving him at speed and overtaking other vehicles while using his steering wheel with his knees
One of the text messages sent by Taylor while driving his VW Golf
With the help of family, who visit regularly, and her tight-knit group of girlfriends, who have brought soft furnishings, flowers and lamps, she says it is starting to feel like home.
‘I have chosen all the furniture, including a bespoke and very beautiful kitchen island that I can sit at in my wheelchair,’ she says.
A team of eight carers supports Catherine round the clock with every aspect of her daily routine. ‘It takes several hours for me to be got up, toileted and washed,’ she explains. ‘I am fed through a tube [but] I can take a few teaspoons of water or coffee.
‘My lungs need careful management with cough-assist machines and nebulisers. I require someone to regularly stretch my limbs and I need to be repositioned regularly to avoid pressure sores to my skin.’
It is, truly heartbreaking to compare Catherine’s existence today with her former life. Social media snaps show her smiling and laughing, on bike rides with her son and posing with friends after fitness challenges.
She doesn’t look her then 49 years, a youthfulness she attributes to looking after her figure and healthy eating.
Today, her head resting on a pillow in her wheelchair, Catherine is no less beautiful, her long blonde hair neatly brushed, her cream blouse and trousers elegant and stylish.
‘My appearance is very important to me,’ she says. ‘I love clothes and have always looked after myself.’
She is, she says, ‘beginning to accept this is my new reality’ – and tries not to think of the man who did this to her.
Taylor, who is expecting a child of his own in February, will serve his sentence in a young offender institution, and also faces a 40-month driving ban.
His parents wrote a letter to the judge this week, apologising for what he did, insisting he is ‘a good person’. Taylor himself turned to Catherine’s family in court to express his regret.
‘I wish I had never got a licence and never got a car,’ he said. ‘I cannot say anything more than sorry.’
It is an apology Catherine is unlikely ever to accept. ‘His moments of stupidity, driving while using a mobile phone, have changed my life and my family’s lives for ever,’ she says.
Today, her main focus is her son, her ray of smiling sunshine, whom she longs to see more.
‘He does visit me, but [this] is dependent on when his father has the time to bring him, which is far from as often as I would like to see him,’ she says. ‘I don’t feel I see him enough and this is very upsetting for me.
‘When we are together, it is usually only for a few hours, and we spend that time catching up about what he’s doing at school and in his free time.
‘We lie on my bed together and watch films, which gives me great comfort to have him near me.’
Though she cannot hold him tight or easily tell him herself, Catherine is immensely proud of how well her son has dealt with her ordeal.
‘He is amazing,’ she adds. ‘He always seems happy and cheerful and perfectly comfortable around me and all my equipment.
‘I just wish I could see him more often and have him living with me. I am desperate to be his mum again.’