I hardly sleep...I relive that terrible day we lost Mitzi
Agony of gran whose girl, 4, was holding her hand as lorry hit them
A GRANDMOTHER has told of her anguish at losing her granddaughter and suffering a life-changing double amputation in a horror lorry crash.
Margaret Rogers’s beloved four-yearold granddaughter Mitzi Steady was killed when they were struck by a runaway 32-tonne tipper truck as they crossed a road holding hands.
The truck, which had faulty brakes, then overturned and crushed Stephen Vaughan, 34, Phil Allen, 52, and Robert Parker, 59, to death in their Volvo saloon in a scene of ‘absolute devastation’. Yesterday disgraced haulage boss Matthew Gordon and mechanic Peter Wood were jailed at Bristol Crown Court over the crash in Bath in February 2015, with the judge telling them: ‘Your failures were inexplicable.’
Families wept as moving tributes to the victims were read in court.
Mrs Rogers, who lost both legs in the tragedy, told how she was forced to move away from her family because she felt she could no longer look after her grandchildren. She said: ‘Everything stopped – getting the children up, brushing their teeth, brushing Mitzi’s hair, finding their shoes. It was lovely to be needed but now I can’t have that important part in their lives. I can’t do it any more.
‘I have moved back to the West Midlands as I don’t want to be a burden for my daughter. It has been difficult for me – I was looking after Mitzi. I do ask myself what else I could have done. But you could set yourself mad going off on a train of thought thinking of the “what-ifs”. Since the incident... I hardly sleep. The facts of that terrible day cause physical and mental pain that me and my family continue to live with.’
Mrs Rogers said she spent three months in hospital. Both her legs were amputated below the knee and she may have to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair. Mrs Rogers’s daughter and Mitzi’s mother, Emmajade Steady, 43, said: ‘I think of Mitzi so often and struggle to go on day by day. My other children have to live their lives with the trauma of losing their sister. My husband and I are heartbroken that she won’t get to live her life to the fullest.
‘We are devastated that our bright, lively, beautiful, vibrant, outgoing little girl will never have her first day at school, learn to read, have best friends to giggle and play with... the list is endless.
‘We are bereft and emotionally distraught. I still find it difficult to accept that Mitzi has died and that I wasn’t there with her when she suffered her traumatic death.’ Recalling the hours after she was told about the tragedy, taxi driver Mr Vaughan’s wife, Sian, who was widowed at 33, said: ‘I stayed awake all night, too scared to close my eyes. I just imagined Steve being hit by the truck. How he felt, did he suffer...’
Louise Allen, who lost her husband of 30 years, said her daughter Hayley, 28, did not have her father to walk her down the aisle on her wedding day. She added: ‘I hope that all of those that were responsible for the collision that day realise what devastation they have caused to my family.’
Businessman Mr Parker, 59, left behind a 30-year-old son, Ian, and wife of 38 years, Denise, who said: ‘I feel extremely angry that the reckless actions of others took my husband away from me – a truly amazing, clever, generous, caring man.’
The three-week trial heard the tragedy was ‘entirely pre- dictable’. The Scania truck was laden with aggregate being transported to building sites from a nearby quarry. It careered down the steep hill on Lansdown Lane with inexperienced 20-year- old driver Philip Potter at the wheel.
Potter, who was cleared of causing the deaths, was said to have been grabbed by Gordon after the tragedy, and told not to tell police about the truck’s defects.
Mr Justice Langstaff told Gordon, 30, and Wood, 55: ‘You knew by being casual about safety you risked lives. Yet you both failed to do what you should have done.’
Gordon, of Dauntsey, Wiltshire, was jailed for seven years and six months after being found guilty of four counts of gross negligence manslaughter. Wood, of Brinkworth, Wiltshire, was jailed for five years and three months after a jury found him guilty of the same charges.
‘Emotionally distraught’