'Drunkest driver' who killed student while four times the limit set to be released from prison early

By KRISTINA WEMYSS, GENERAL NEWS REPORTER Published: 15:40, 23 July 2026 | Updated: 15:46, 23 July 2026 A killer driver, described by police as the ‘drunkest ever seen behind the wheel’, is set to be freed from prison under Labour’s early release scheme. Malcolm Waite knocked down two pedestrians in July 2022 - a 16-year-old girl, who suffered cuts and bruising, and Fenella Hawes, 20, who died at the scene. She was carrying home sunflowers for her mother when Waite, now 72, mounted the pavement in an SUV. He drove on until he hit a road sign and trees a mile away. When officers arrived, they found Waite in the driver's seat, smelling of alcohol and with a half-drunk bottle of vodka beside him, refusing to provide a breath test. He was four times the legal alcohol limit and was jailed for eight years in 2022 after he admitted causing death by dangerous driving. PC Callum Walchester, who arrested him, said: 'I've been a PC for ten years and he was the drunkest person I have ever seen behind the wheel of a car.' Waite is now set to be released after serving half of his sentence in prison, rather than the two-thirds he previously would have had to. It comes as part of Labour’s early release scheme, designed to ease the pressure on prisons, which is due to come into force from September 2. Waite could be one of the first of more than 5,000 offenders including killers, rapists and violent criminals to be freed. However, the family of Ms Hawes - a former Lancaster University student - have called for anyone who has caused a death to be exempted from the scheme. They warned that reducing Waite's sentence would be ‘no deterrent’ to him repeating his crime. Ms Hawes's sister, Rosemary Shepherd, a dental nurse and mother-of-three from Cromer, Norfolk, told The Daily Telegraph: ‘It’s scary to think that we might see him in the street, and that is petrifying to me. He might get back in the car. He might do the same thing again. ‘[Fenella] 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.’ Fenella Hawes, 20, was carrying sunflowers to give to her mother Margaret when she was killed in a hit and run Waite was described as 'the drunkest person I have ever seen behind the wheel of a car' by the officer who arrested him The future of the scheme had already been thrown into doubt yesterday after PC Andrew Harper’s widow described plans to release two of his killers early as ‘deplorable’. Mr Harper died in 2019 after he was dragged behind a car for more than a mile as he tried to stop three teenage thugs from stealing a quad bike. Lissie, his wife, fought for Harper's Law - a mandatory life sentence for anyone who kills an emergency worker in the line of duty. But yesterday she said her husband's memory felt 'forgotten'. Following her comments, Prime Minister Andy Burnham reiterated a previous vow to review the scheme. The Daily Mail understands that officials have been summoned to an online meeting today with members of the Prison and Probation Service today.