Our little girl was crushed like a can of Coke
Baby died after driver failed to use handbrake properly – but law lets him escape trial
A DRIVER who left the handbrake off his Range Rover minutes before it hurtled down a hill and crushed a toddler to death has escaped prosecution, it emerged yesterday.
Andrew Williams, 48, had parked outside his ex-partner’s bungalow 15 minutes earlier.
But he did not put the vehicle’s automatic gearbox in park, which would have stopped it moving, and nor did he fully apply the handbrake, an inquest heard.
The 2.6-ton vehicle rolled down the steep driveway and out on to the road, killing Pearl Black, aged one. She had been walking past with her father and baby brother when she was hit by the 4x4 in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales.
Her father Paul, 50, broke down yesterday as he told the inquest how Pearl was snatched from his grasp and ‘crushed like a Coke can’ against a garden wall on August 6 last year.
‘I saw the life going from her face, the life draining from her beautiful brown eyes,’ he said.
‘I was saying: “Come back to daddy, come back to daddy.” She was literally limp and lifeless. I was screaming: “She’s gone, she’s gone, my poor baby girl”.’
Mr Black sustained minor injuries. His eight-month-old baby Ace was thrown to the ground but escaped unhurt. Pearl died of a catastrophic head injury.
The 4x4’s owner Mr Williams, 48, said in a police interview: ‘I pulled the handbrake up as far as I need to. I had been told not to pull it up fully or it would stretch the cable.’ Police accident investigator Gareth Davies told the hearing: ‘ If the handbrake was applied it would not have come down the drive in the first place.’
The Crown Prosecution Service has admitted it are powerless to prosecute Mr Williams for manslaughter because his vehicle was parked on private land.
Mr Black, a former contestant on TV’s The Voice called on the CPS to review the decision.
He said outside Pontypridd Coroner’s Court: ‘There is a void in our lives that can never, ever be filled. While we know that nothing will bring her back, one of the hardest things is coming to terms with the fact that no one will face prosecution for her death. The vehicle was mechanically sound – it would not have moved had it been properly secured.
‘The loophole in the law that the vehicle started its descent on private rather than public land has stopped us getting justice for our daughter.’
He added: ‘We are now calling on the Government to change the law so that no other family has to suffer what we have been through.’ The family are working with Merthyr Tydfil MP Gerald Jones, who plans to introduce a Private Member’s Bill in the House of Commons to get the law changed.
Mr Black and his children had been walking home from the park before the accident.
Mr Williams’s ex-partner paramedic Gillian Price told the court: ‘I could see the Range Rover had smashed through the wall opposite. I could see Paul Black holding a lifeless child to his chest.’
Neighbour Rebecca Davies said: ‘Paul was shouting and
screaming and holding the little girl to his chest. I could see her head was badly swollen.’ Pearl’s mother Gemma was not in the court. Glamorgan Coroner Andrew Barkley recorded a narrative verdict that Pearl died as a result of an accident. He said: ‘The gear lever was not in the correct position – not in park. The handbrake had not been applied in any way to hold the vehicle. ‘It started to creep down the slope due to the force of gravity. The issue here is driver operation, mechanical fault. rather This than is very any much an issue of driver error.’
The Black family’s solicitor Richard Langdon said they would be asking the CPS for a review of the case.
‘Stopped us getting justice’