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Jail time lenient: widow

Margaret Paki, who lost her husband Kevin and son Brian in last year’s crash. Picture: Louise White

When Margaret Paki yesterday heard the man who "broke" her family would spend a maximum of five years in jail, the overwhelming emotion she felt was disappointment.

Knowing she would spend the rest of her life without her husband and son after they were killed by a drug-affected and sleep-deprived truck driver, Mrs Paki felt the sentence given to 45-year-old Jeffrey Moyle was too short.

Life has been unimaginably difficult for her since Moyle, high on methylamphetamine and reaching for a packet of cigarettes, drove his truck straight into a stationary car which Kevin Paki and his son Brian were in.

"(My family) is really broken," she said.

"My eldest daughter, sometimes she goes out the back of the house and she cries.

"(Yesterday) everything was OK. I heard the judge was speaking, everything was really nice until, when he produced the conclusive part of the penalty, I was a bit disappointed.

"When he mentioned five years, I was not really quite happy because I will never get back my husband or my son."

Kevin and Brian were driving to Kalgoorlie-Boulder when they stopped at a railway crossing near Kellerberrin on February 24, 2014.

The pair were waiting for a train to pass when Moyle's prime mover rammed into the back of their Holden Commodore.

The force of the impact pushed the Pakis' car 100m off the road, causing it to burst into flames with the two men trapped inside.

In the days before the crash, Moyle and another man had driven from New South Wales to WA.

During that time, he used methylamphetamine, evident in a toxicology analysis of his blood conducted after the crash.

Moyle was heading back to NSW via Great Eastern Highway when he approached the railway crossing where the Pakis waited.

Reaching for a packet of cigarettes on the floor of the truck, he failed to see their car or the flashing lights of the crossing.

Judge Mark Herron yesterday said he was satisfied Moyle's dangerous driving was a result of his intoxication.

"From the fact that you were affected by methylamphetamine such that it impacted upon your reaction times, your concentration, your ability to safely control a vehicle, clearly you should not have been driving at all," he said.

"I do not accept the cause of the crash causing the death of the two occupants in the stationary car was simply because you were distracted while you were looking for your cigarettes, although… that may have played a part in what happened."

Moyle will be eligible for parole after three years and his driver's licence was suspended for 10 years.