Nobody’s to blame except me
Agony of mother whose girl, seven, was crushed by skip lorry as they crossed road
THE mother of a seven-year-old girl who was knocked down and killed by a skip lorry has said she was the only one to blame for her daughter’s death.
Yvonne Clarke and daughter Sophia McDonald were crossing the road when the youngster was hit by the truck as it pulled away.
Miss Clarke, 40, told an inquest that her daughter was holding her hand as they started to cross ‘and then she wasn’t’.
She said after the hearing: ‘I don’t hold anyone responsible except for myself.’
Sophia was just yards from her home in Coventry when the accident happened at 4pm on October 18 last year.
She was walking hand in hand with her mother’s hand as they passed in front of a queue of traffic, but was hit by one of the front wheels of the lorry as it drove off.
Truck driver Steven Young told the inquest he was returning to the Tom White Waste yard in nearby Longford when the collision happened.
He said his lorry was in the middle lane in a queue of vehicles so he could go straight on at traffic lights, adding: ‘I did all my checks. I do that all the time’.
Mr Young said he then felt a ‘slight impact’, adding: ‘Next thing I know there was a lady screaming that I had killed her baby.
‘I jumped out of the cab and can only describe what looked like a mannequin between the wheels.’
When asked at the inquest whether there was anything he could have done to change what happened, he replied: ‘I wish to hell there was.’
Miss Clarke said she remembered stepping into the road and ‘Sophia was holding my hand’, adding: ‘A car came past and I stepped back – I don’t know if Sophia stepped back too far. I banged on the lorry. I was hoping she was in the middle [of the lorry] and not in the wheels.’
Miss Clarke’s cousin, Donna Proctor, was with the pair when Sophia was killed.
She said they heard a ‘screech’, adding: ‘My cousin was just running round and round in circles in the middle of the road just scream- ing. There was nothing we could do for her daughter.’
Paul White, , managing director at Tom White Waste, said he was ‘absolutely broken-hearted’.
He added: ‘We’re a family company. The vast majority of employees have got children. ‘It’s an absolute tragedy.’ Mr Young and Miss Clarke were taken to hospital to be treated for shock after the crash.
PC Ian Took, a forensic collision investigator with West Midlands Police, said: ‘Sophia was walking along with her mother.
‘The lorry had a dashcam which captured footage.
‘As they get near the doctor’s surgery they went out of view of the dashcam.
‘They started to cross the road. The skip lorry had stopped and then the vehicles in front moved off as the lights changed to green. It is unlikely that the driver of the lorry would have been able to see Sophia’s mother as he started to move forward, and he would not have been able to see Sophia.’
PC Took said Sophia was knocked over and the front wheel of the lorry went over her ‘causing fatal injuries’.
He added: ‘In my opinion, the driver could not have avoided this collision.’
The inquest at Coventry Magistrates’ Court was told that no one was being charged with any criminal offence.
Coventry coroner Sean McGovern concluded that Sophia died as the result of a road traffic collision. He said a post- mortem examination found that her death was caused by head injuries.
A GP from a nearby surgery ran out and tried to save her before an ambulance arrived, but the coroner said: ‘No medical attention could have changed the outcome.’
After Sophia’s death, her family said: ‘She was the happiest child with a beautiful cheeky smile.
Hundreds of mourners wearing pink gathered at Coventry Cathedral for her funeral in November.
‘She was screaming I’d killed her baby’