Mum gets five years for tram killing
A MOTHER of two who killed a complete stranger by pushing him into the path of a moving tram sobbed as she was jailed for five years yesterday.
Philip Carter, 30, was fatally injured in the short but angry confrontation with Charissa Brown-Wellington at a busy Metrolink station in Manchester.
Brown-Wellington, 31, from Oldham, admitted manslaughter after the prosecution accepted her not guilty plea to murder.
But just moments before sentencing she cried out: “It was an accident. I swear it was.”
She must serve at least two thirds of her sentence before being considered for parole and will then be on licence for a further three years.
Manchester Crown Court heard the tragedy happened at Victoria Station at 7.50pm on June 11.
Brown-Wellington lunged at Mr Carter during a row, yelling at the labourer: “What are you looking at? Get out of my face.”
Mr Carter, who had been waiting to get home to Oldham, lost his balance under the force of being shoved and fell into a gap between the tram and its carriage as it pulled out. Other commuters listened in horror to his screams as he was dragged under the wheels of the carriage, killing him almost instantly.
When emergency services arrived Brown-Wellington, who had been drinking wine and lager as well as taking ecstasy, was overheard saying: “I didn’t mean it – he got in my face so I pushed him away. He pushed me first and I pushed him back.
“All my life I have put up with men putting their hands on me.”
Mark Ford, defending, said the deceased, according to witnesses, was extremely drunk.