The anguish of a family made to wait for justice for their dead daughter
HEARTBROKEN Shanneal Herron had an appalling experience with the courts – waiting two years to get justice for her dead daughter Eilish.
Aspiring nursing student Eilish, who was aged just 17, was run down in a horrific accident on a petrol station forecourt in 2014.
She suffered a head injury and died at the scene after the driver reversed over her and dragged her 20 yards.
Painfully for Eilish’s family, they prepared for the driver’s trial – only for it to be postponed at the last minute for two more months. And that means they had to wait just under two years to see him brought to book.
Shanneal told The Sunday Post “I felt that because Eilish was dead and buried that there was no priority or need to seek justice,”
“It is as though the victim’s family are the last to be considered.
“When the trial was postponed for two months it just made everything even worse.
“At the court we had to sit near the man who killed Eilish. How can that be right?
“It was so upsetting to find there was nothing by way of a room for victims or their families.
“We could see the accused laughing with his solicitor and it hurt us deeply.
“I don’t know what they were laughing about but I felt it was not something we should have had been exposed to.
“It was only after one of my family asked for somewhere for us to wait till the case was called, that we managed to get away from it.
“This is no way to treat victims or their families.
“Surely our courts can be more civilised?
“It just seems victims are not as important as the guilty. We do not get nearly as much consideration.”
Ambulance service IT trainer Shanneal, 48, from Paisley, added: “Our lovely daughter would have been 20 last week. But we have to go on without her and it is incredibly painful.
“This was our first and only experience of the courts and the truth is that going to court made an already awful situation even more unbearable.”
The, 83-year-old driver was convicted of causing Eilish’s death by careless driving in August this year and fined £5000.
The Sheriff Court in Paisley heard how paramedics had to jack the car up to free Eilish. The accident happened at an Asda petrol station in Linwood, Paisley. The talented young teen had been awarded Renfrewshire’s Young Sportsperson of the Year in 2013.
And she was just weeks from starting her nursing degree when her life was cut brutally short.