Royal designer crushed by lorry as she biked to work
A RENOWNED art designer was crushed to death as she cycled to work in London when a lorry ran over her at a roundabout, a court has heard.
Moira Gemmill, 55, was on her way to St James’s Palace when she was run over by a tipper lorry near Lambeth Bridge in Westminster.
Harrowing footage played to jurors at the Old Bailey showed the moment the lorry, driven by James Kwatia, accelerated on to a roundabout, crushing Ms Gemmill beneath its wheels and killing her instantly.
Opening Kwatia’s trial, prosecutor Mark Gadsden said the 43-year-old had failed to use his mirrors properly and paid insufficient attention to cyclists as he reached the end of the bridge.
Kwatia, he added, had positioned his lorry towards the centre of two lanes on the bridge, but as he approached the roundabout he suddenly pulled across to his left, as Ms Gemmill passed by on his near side.
The jury heard the driver had been too preoccupied with traffic on the roundabout. Kwatia, said Mr Gadsden, “should have known she was there”.
Off-duty police and paramedics tried to save Ms Gemmill, but she was declared dead at the scene.
The designer, who formerly worked at the Victoria and Albert Museum, had just started a new job as director of capital programmes at the Royal Collection Trust, working on projects at Windsor Castle and Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh.
Mr Gadsden told jurors that Kwatia would have been able to see Ms Gemmill in his mirrors for around eight seconds as he crossed the bridge, and that he should have been aware of her presence. He said Kwatia told a witness he was preoccupied with the roundabout traffic.
He added: “His lorry is in the centre of the lane, but coming on to the roundabout itself he cuts right across to the left and therefore allows the cyclist no room.
“As he accelerates away, the cyclist is swept under the lorry and tragically crushed.”
“We say it was his driving that was the causation.”
Kwatia, from Catford, south London, denies causing death by careless driving on April 9, 2015. The trial continues.