THE mother of a 17-year-old killed in a drug-driving horror crash says no jail term is long enough for the man who killed her “best friend.”
Keilan Roberts, then 21, had taken ketamine, cocaine, ecstasy and had been drinking when he killed passenger Chloe Hayman in Fochriw, South Wales.
When the car hit a cattle grid, a railing pierced the windscreen and tragically killed Chloe instantly.
Chloe’s bereaved mother has called for young people to learn from the tragedy, and even hugged the man who killed her, according to the BBC.
Devastated Danielle O’Halloran, 37, from Mountain Ash, said Chloe was her best friend and someone who “always saw the good in everyone.”
Roberts had met Chloe in a nightclub just hours before and offered her a lift home with his friends.
He had intended to drop Chloe off the following morning but changed his mind and asked his pals to leave him and Chloe where his Skoda Octavia was parked.
Hours after the crash, Danielle was told the news — a moment she described as “too painful to relive.”
She said: “Your body can’t cope with the fact that they’re not there.
“Like at that moment, I was just in shock.”
Roberts, from Rhymney, Caerphilly county, admitted four charges linked to Chloe’s death.
Footage captured on the bodycam of a police officer after the crash shows the immediate aftermath of the horror smash.
Roberts can be seen standing on the side of the road, looking dazed and confused while holding a Peroni bottle.
In June 2023, he was sentenced, and following a family appeal, his prison term was increased to five years and three months with a 12-year driving ban.
Chloe’s mum had slammed Robert’s jail term as an “insult” after losing her “kind, loving, beautiful” daughter.
Danielle said she was consumed by anger and hate: “I wished so many bad things upon him, I wanted him to stay there forever.
“But I felt ill inside with the amount of anger I had. I just couldn’t let it eat me up any more.”
Through the restorative justice process, Danielle met Roberts, who was then 22, in prison — hugging him and confronting the man who took her daughter’s life.
She said: “We were both emotional when he walked in.”
Meeting him face to face, Danielle says she realised that he had not meant to kill her daughter, but was “just a 21-year-old” who had made the “wrong choice.”
Now, heartbroken Danielle hopes they can one day speak together in schools to warn young people about the devastating consequences of drink and drug driving.
She said: “I want young people to understand the lives that are shattered by one wrong choice.
No jail term is ever going to be long enough for what he did.”
She added: “I hugged him and said, I’m sorry you’re the one who has to live with this.”
Danielle believes no jail sentence can outweigh the lifelong regret and guilt Roberts now carries.
“Coming back into the community is actually harder because you have to face people,” she said.
She added that society must do more to prevent risky behaviour, provide community support, and protect young people from the “glamorisation” of drinking and dangerous choices.
