A YOUNG mum told the drink-driver who killed her husband he had destroyed their family and taken away their future.

Twenty-seven-year-old Stephanie Dix’s husband Michael, who was born in Swindon, died instantly when Beaumont’s Vauxhall Corsa smashed head on with his Yamaha motorbike while he was travelling home from work in Benson shortly after midnight on November 29 last year.

Beaumont, who had turned 18 the day before, had been out drinking cider with friends and was speeding at 75mph when he tried to overtake a lorry on the A4074 outside Ipsden near Wallingford, clipping a Mercedes on the other side of the road before smashing into the motorbike, Oxford Crown Court heard yesterday. He was sentenced to four years and eight months to a young offenders institute and disqualified from driving for five years.

Last night, Mr Dix’s wife Stephanie said no matter what sentence Judge Ian Pringle QC had handed Beaumont, it wouldn’t have made a difference to her family because it ‘doesn’t bring Mike back’.

The couple, who had been married for just over two years when Mr Dix, who was 27 was killed, have a three-year-old son Tommy.

Mrs Dix, from Didcot, said she first ‘pitied’ Beaumont because of how young he was but changed her mind after hearing that he had been caught speeding on the same road a month before the tragedy.

Fighting back tears in court to read out a statement Mrs Dix said she had gone from being ‘a loving, happy wife,’ to ‘now, just this bitter widow’.

She told Beaumont: “I never dreamt that I would have to explain to my three-year-old son that his daddy would not come home again, ever.

“I’m so angry at you and the world. You destroyed our whole family.

“We had so many future plans. Our future was taken away that night.”

Mrs Dix told the court how she and her husband were trying for another baby and that she had not just lost a husband, but her best friend and father to her son.

Mrs Dix’s family paid tribute to her husband saying he was a ‘joker’, ‘friend to everybody’ and ‘besotted with his son’.

Mr Dix worked at Agrivert, a food waste company in Benson, and had been working the late shift before he was killed on his way home to where the family lived in Woodcote.

In court, Mrs Dix said she felt ‘numb and shocked’ when she was woken up at about 2am to the news of the tragedy. Mr Dix’s sister added in another statement: “I will never forgive you.”

Beaumont, of Crabtree Corner, Ipsden, near Wallingford, admitted causing death by dangerous driving and driving a motor vehicle while above the legal alcohol limit.

Sentencing Judge Ian Pringle QC said he recognised that Beaumont would have to to live with the consequences of his actions ‘for the rest of his life’, but added ‘so will Michael Dix’s family, his widow, his family and his friends’.

The court heard how Beaumont gave a reading of 106mg of alcohol in 100ml of blood two hours after the crash. The legal limit is 80mg.

Defending, Claire Davies said: “Before November last year Mr Beaumont had a bright and promising future. He does not ask for forgiveness and knows it will not come from the Dix family. There is credit to be given for genuine remorse.”