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.