8 MEMBERS OF ONE FAMILY DIE IN M1 HORROR CRASH
Britain’s worst motorway death toll for 24 years Police hold two lorry drivers, one for ‘drink- driving’ EIGHT KILLED AFTER MINIBUS IS CRUSHED IN BANK HOLIDAY HORROR ON THE M1
EIGHT people were killed yesterday and four more were seriously i njured when a minibus was crushed by two lorries on the M1 – the deadliest motorway pile-up for 24 years.
Among the survivors was a fiveyear-old girl who was trapped in the wreckage for an hour.
The girl, a woman and a man were fighting for their lives in hospital last night after suffering lifethreatening injuries. The fourth survivor of the crash, which happened near Newport Pagnell in Buckinghamshire shortly after 3am, was also in hospital with serious injuries.
Police said six men and two women were killed in the crash.
The minibus had been hired by an Indian family travelling from Hyson Green in Nottingham to Wembley in North-West London. From there, the 11 passengers were due to go on a coach journey around Europe, according to friends.
Some of the victims worked in Nottingham for an IT firm, while the rest were relatives visiting from the Indian city of Madras.
Their driver, Cyriac Joseph, who owned the minibus company, was also killed in the collision. Last night, the two lorry drivers were being held in police custody, both on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving, and one also on suspicion of drink-driving.
Brett Smith, from Milton Keynes, was the first person on the scene and helped to comfort the fiveyear-old girl as she lay trapped.
The 37-year-old said: ‘A family has been destroyed. I held a little girl by her arms as she was trapped inside the vehicle for a good hour. Two bodies were resting on her.
‘She was trapped under a seat so I was holding her hand and trying to reassure her. She tried to pull herself out by holding on to my hands but couldn’t.
‘The fire service then arrived and decided the child was a priority. They gave me goggles because they thought I was doing a good job and wanted me to stay holding her.
‘They then tried to remove the top of the van. I was trying to reassure the girl – I promised her a McDonald’s. There was blood everywhere. It was like a scene from a war zone.’
Ollie Miller, who saw the crash scene, said: ‘It looked horrible. The two lorries were smashed badly and I could see a car or minibus
underneath one of the lorries. It was totally destroyed. The minibus was basically flat.’
Last night, a close family friend of Mr Joseph, known as Benny, said he had moved to the UK from Kerala in India five years ago with his wife Ancy and their two children. The 52- year- old had worked for Asda before starting his minicab business, ABC Travels.
He bought the 16-seater minibus around four years ago and became a self-employed businessman. His cousin Soyamon Joseph, 49, said Mr Joseph had enjoyed dinner at his house on Friday night.
He added: ‘That was the last supper he had. I knew he had this very early job so he slept at my house from 10pm until 1am. He had a group of 11 to pick up at 1.30am from Hyson Green in Nottingham. Benny’s wife was working a night shift at the hospital where she is a nurse. She tried to ring him when she got home but there was no reply. She rang me and I told her everything would be OK. Then the police rang her and said there had been an accident. It is so tragic. Benny was my best friend.
‘He had worked so hard to send his daughter Benita to a girls’ grammar school where she had just got ten A-stars and two As in her GCSEs. He was so proud.
‘He had a flight booked back to India on September 3 as he was building a house there and the foundation stone was about to be laid.’
One neighbour added: ‘It’s so, so sad. He’s a kind and generous man. If I needed to get somewhere and he wasn’t working he’d offer his help. I’ve lived next door to them most of my life and the whole family are lovely.’
Photographs yesterday showed the devastating impact of the crash, with the minibus almost totally destroyed and the front of the FedEx and AIM Logistics lorry cabs smashed up.
A stretch of motorway was closed between junctions 14 and 15 for ten hours yesterday.
The fatal crash was the deadliest pile-up since 1993, when 12 schoolchildren and their teacher died in a minibus accident on the M40.