Had been killed by 162mph drink-driver
with man manslaughter. I was told the maximum sent sentence would be 12 years but he’s likely to servese four. It doesn’t make sense. “I don’ don’t understand why he was on the road whe when Joetta was killed but one day he will b be allowed to drive again.” HR worker Joetta had given her mum a hug before she left the family home in a taxi for a night out in Man Manchester on January 23 last year. Z Zane, now six, was being looked afte after by his other grandparents. Wh When Joetta failed to return home the next morning, Patricia assumed she had stayed with a friend. T Then she saw a headline about th the accident on the news, never th thinking it could have claimed her gi girl’s life. She said: “I saw the n news but I didn’t think about it. I assumed Joetta was at a friend’s a and she’d call in a few hours to ask me for a lift home. I started to worry at 1pm, when I spoke to Zane’s other gr grandma, who said she hadn’t phoned to check on him. That was unlike her. I kne knew something was wrong.” Patricia reported Joetta missing and it was almo almost 24 hours before officers discovere discovered she was the victim of the M62 smash, be between Eccles and Warrington. Grant, who suffered a leg injury, tried to leave h hospital before he was arrested. He prolo prolonged the family’s agony by refusing to name his dead passenger. Patricia said: “I don’t know how well they knew each other. I’d never heard of him. He didn’t say who was in the car. Maybe he thought it would help his case.
“Maybe he was in shock. But he has put himself first. Why didn’t he think about her family? Joetta deserved better.”
Questions
Police finally identified Joetta thanks to descriptions Patricia gave them of her jewellery. She then had to break the news to Zane and her other daughters Chipo, 19, and Jessica, 13. Her husband Harrison, 51, a chemical engineer, was working in South Africa and had to fly home.
The next day, she went to identify Joetta’s body in a mortuary. Patricia said: “She was behind glass I couldn’t touch her. Her head was in bandages. She didn’t look like herself but I could see it was her. I wanted to hold her but I couldn’t. I asked to see her hand as she has a birthmark like mine but there were too many cuts.”
The family had to wait a month before Joetta’s funeral as Grant’s defence team wanted a second postmortem. Patricia was tortured by thoughts of her girl’s last moments. “There were so many unanswered questions,” she said. “I just hoped it had been quick. She had been drinking, so I hoped she had been asleep.
“I couldn’t bear to think of the alternative. She hated speeding and was always telling her dad and me to slow down.”
Patricia could not bear to attend court in May to see Grant, from Birmingham, sentenced. He has not reached out to say sorry but she has toyed with the idea of visiting him in jail to get some answers.
She said: “Some days, I want answers, others I don’t want to open that can of worms. I don’t think the answers will make me feel better. They won’t be pretty.
“If I do it, it will be for our benefit and not his. I don’t want to portray him as a monster as he has to live with what he did and anyonenyone with a conscience nce would find that very difficult. I want him punished in a way that deters him from driving dangerously again. “Maybe he should see children who lost parents. I’d like him to have counselling and to write essays on what he has done. “He will be allowed to drive again but can he be cured? He made a conscious decision to drive drunk and do the speed he was doing. Maybe it would be safer, given his history, if he never drove again.” Patricia is focusing on keeping Joetta’s memory alive for Zane. She has had help from child bereavement charity Once Upon a Smile to help explain things. Yet she cannot bear to take him to his mum’s grave in case he feels rejected again. She said: “W “We talk to Zane about his mummy and ifi he is good we tell him mummy will b be proud. He still dreams about her a l lot. “I haven’t taken him to the grave as I don’t know what to tell him. He won’t understand why he can’t see her and he wants to be where his mummy is. “One day we are going to have to explain e exactly what happened but I don don’t want him to be scared of cars.c It’s very hard when he questions why she left h him, because she never wanted to.”