Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
WE’RE IN LIMBO
Mum’s agony for Lisa one year after tragedy
THE devastated family of a young mum knocked down and killed say they’ve been “left in limbo”.
Lisa Gow was struck by a car in Belfast a year ago this week.
Martin Alexander Nelson, 40, is yet to enter a plea and a Police Ombudsman investigation hasn’t been completed.
Reliving the moment she was told of Lisa’s death, mum Agnes said: “I just remember the policeman having to lift me off the floor.”
THE heartbroken family of a young mum who was knocked down and killed last year have opened up about the knock on the door that changed their lives forever.
Devoted mum-of-two Lisa Gow died when she was struck by a car as she walked along the Ballysillan Road in North Belfast on April 19 last year.
Her devastated dad Peter recalled how they’d heard the news of a terrible accident – but didn’t dream for a minute their family would be the one to get such dreadful news.
He said: “My main memory of that day was that I’d seen it on the internet.
“It was on Belfast Live that something had happened and I actually said to my wife, ‘Someone is going to get a knock on the door, someone is going to get news they don’t want to get’. Then she couldn’t get in touch with Lisa.
“But Lisa had been texting her mother that morning to say she was going back to bed so as soon she said that I thought, ‘Well she’s gone back to bed so it’s not her’. But not long after that the door knocked, it was our door that was knocked. As soon as I saw the police, I knew.”
And while Peter says he knew instantly why the police were at the door, for Lisa’s mother Agnes, nothing could have prepared her for that moment.
She said: “Peter was just getting ready to go over to Lisa’s to put a bathroom floor down for her and he had his coat and all on him when he seen the police at the door.
“That was at 1.35pm and she died at 11 so we had to wait all that time before we were told about it. I just wasn’t prepared for it when they came. I just remember the policeman having to lift me off the floor.”
And as the first anniversary of Lisa’s death approaches, Lisa’s parents, as well as her sisters Kelly-ann and Rebecca, are still working through their grief.
The court case relating to her death is still ongoing.
Martin Alexander Nelson, 40, from Ardoyne Road, has been charged with a number of offences linked to Lisa’s death, including causing death by dangerous driving. He is yet to enter a plea in court.
In a previous hearing, Belfast Magistrates Court heard during interview Nelson had “made full admissions and accepted his role in the incident”.
Visibly distraught by the memories of the day Lisa died, mum Agnes recalled the heart-wrenching moment the family had to break the news to Lisa’s nineyear-old daughter Olivia.
She said: “My sister had died two years before and my nephew died the year before that and she always talked about them.
“I used to say they’re up in the sky with the angels. Our wee neighbour had only died and she was very fond of her.
“We’d told her she was with the angels and she understood all that so when it was her mummy, I said, ‘Your mummy is with the angels now darling’ and she knew.” Looking back on the last contact she had with Lisa, Agnes recalls how she had been awake through the night with her young son and sent her a message on the morning of her death to say she was going back to bed.
Agnes said: “I sent her one back saying, ‘Well your daddy will be over at 1.45pm’.
“And she sent back ‘OK mama’. She always called me mama.”
When the news came through, and despite the distressing scene that awaited them on the Ballysillan Road, the Gow family rushed to be close to their daughter. And while they were held
I wasn’t prepared for it. They had to lift me off the floor AGNES GOW NORTH BELFAST
back at the scene, the family did manage to say a final goodbye in private.
Agnes said: “We did get to see her in the end. We didn’t know what to expect when they brought us down to see her but she just looked like herself I couldn’t see a mark on her.
“The day it happened we begged them and begged them to let us down, just to even stand across the road from her but they wouldn’t.”
Peter added: “The funeral director got someone up from Londonderry to work on her and he said it was the worst road traffic accident he had to ever work on. So getting down to see her was a Godsend but we’re glad we got down to see her.
“I wouldn’t like to think what life would be like if hadn’t got to see her.”
A devoted mum to Olivia and Riley, Lisa’s sister Rebecca remembers her being “full of fun”.
She said: “I had seen her the day before and after I left she said her and the kids were wrestling on the ground, that was her, that was the type of mummy she was.
“She didn’t care what anyone thought when she was getting on like that to the kids. She was always making faces and her hair was always a different colour, she was very bubbly. Christmas was her favourite time of the year.
“We’ve got lots of photos of her but none of them are serious ones, she was just like that, always pulling faces.
“If the sun was out at all she would have been over and saying, ‘right, BBQ time’. She was the fun person in the family, she was always up for something. We haven’t had a BBQ since, I can’t even go out the back anymore.”
And a year on the family says slow progress in the legal process, as well as waiting for an ongoing Police Ombudsman investigation into the circumstances of Lisa’s death, is a struggle.
Peter said: “We’re just in limbo.”
To mark the anniversary on Friday, the family’s plan to revisit the scene to lay some flowers at the spot where she died – as the questions about why she was on that precise part of the road at that moment continue to haunt them.
Rebecca recalled: “She had been to the shop but she had walked past her own street on up that road to where it happened.”
Agnes added: “We still don’t know what she was doing up that way.
“The only thing I can think of is that she was on her way over here.
“She would have walked over here at times if it was a nice day. But we still don’t know– and we’ll never know.”