Spared prison, driver who ran over toddler as she chatted on hands-free kit
A DRIVER who killed a toddler in a car park as she spoke on her hands-free mobile phone has been spared jail.
Mother-of-seven Hoden Aden, 44, ran over two-year-old Fahima Hassan near a zebra crossing while the girl held her mother’s hand.
Aden had been talking on her phone while driving at 5mph as she looked for a parking space outside an Asda in Wembley, north-west London.
Harrow Crown Court heard that Aden’s view had also been blocked by a box of tissues on the dashboard of her Volkswagen Tiguan, and she thought she had clipped a shopping trolley. Fahima’s mother Narmin Nur spoke of her
‘How can this be justice?’
anger after Aden was spared jail, instead being handed a 14-month sentence suspended for two years.
Miss Nur, 31, said: ‘ How can this be justice? How can someone kill a child and walk free? I know no sentence can bring my daughter back but we thought she might get some prison time.
‘As she drove over her I heard my daughter’s bones crunching. She’s never said anything to me.
‘I would ask as a human being just to at least be sorry. She is an evil, evil woman.’
When Aden appeared at court last month she had denied death by careless driving but was found guilty after a four-day trial.
During the trial, the court heard Aden had been to a job interview earlier in the day and was discussing it with a friend on her handsfree phone when she hit Fahima at about 8.20pm on September 11, 2014. Szilvia Booker, prosecuting, said: ‘ On the day in question the standard of the defendant’s driving fell well short of the standard expected of a careful and competent driver.
‘She was not looking at the road in front of her and there was a box of tissues partially obscuring her view from the windscreen.
‘She was distracted by looking for a car park space and by a telephone conversation which she was engaging in on a hands-free phone.
‘Mrs Aden collided with Fahima simply because she didn’t see her in the roadway and the car continued to drive over her for a period of time because she didn’t see what she had collided with. Because she was going at such a slow speed there was plenty of time to see the pedestrians, but she simply wasn’t looking, she was unaware she impacted with the child and was confronted with a hostile crowd at the scene.’
Miss Booker read a victim impact statement from Fahima’s mother, who lives in Kingsbury, north-west London. Miss Nur said: ‘The last two years have been hellish for me. It has taken everything to rebuild my life. I have lost my child, she was ripped from me.
‘Having to kiss a photo because I can no longer kiss or hold her has been indescribable.
‘The child I gave birth to, raised and protected for two-and-a-half years has been taken. I kiss a photo of her every night.
‘I know I was not responsible but as a mother it’s natural for me to feel I could have done something to protect her.
‘My family life has changed and will never be the same again.’
Sally Hobson, defending, told the court that Aden had suffered depression, anxiety and weight loss after the incident.
Judge Freya Newbery decided not to jail Aden due to her poor health, the remorse she had shown and because she has to look after her elderly mother.
Judge Newbery told her: ‘This was a tragic accident.
‘It was an ordinary shopping trip, but one with extraordinary consequences for all involved.
‘Miss Nur has been left devastated and her victim impact statement was heartbreaking.’
Aden, of Wembley, was also ordered to complete 120 hours of unpaid work and disqualified from driving for 18 months.