Friends’ fireworks memorial to pair killed on train line
FRIENDS of two men who were killed by a train 10 years ago as they fled the scene of a burglary let off fireworks in the early hours of yesterday to mark a decade since their deaths.
At 4.14am on December 9, 2009, Trevor Davies, 20, and David Cooper, 24, were killed instantly when they were struck by a train travelling at 68mph in Cardiff.
The pair were fleeing the Go Outdoors superstore on Newport Road on stolen quad bikes, having broken in just minutes earlier.
Along with Liam Xuereb and Anthony Thomas, they had made off with a haul of men’s jackets worth £40,000, which they planned to sell in the run-up to Christmas to make “easy money”.
The gang had ridden down the railway line, used bolt-cutters to get through outer fencing, and then used the quad bikes to ram-raid the back doors. The break-in was caught on camera.
But when Trevor Davies and David Cooper were fleeing the scene on one of the quad bikes along the railway line, they were hit by an unscheduled passenger train being taken from the Canton depot to Cheltenham for servicing.
The two other men escaped without serious injury and were later jailed for their part in the burglary.
Following the deaths, family, friends and neighbours paid tribute.
A friend of Trevor’s mother said: “He was a lovely boy who had his faults like all boys do, but he was polite and would offer to do anything for anyone.”
Every year since that fatal night, friends of the pair have commemorated their lives by lighting candles and laying flowers at a bridge near the spot where they died before setting off fireworks at a field near Elgar Crescent in Llanrumney.
One of their friends, Kelvin Thomas, 32, said: “We do it to remember our boys. I’d known them since I was about six.
“We all grew up in Llanrumney together. Cooper lived round the next street to me and Trevor was about three streets away.
“I know what they were doing was wrong but they were good guys and they didn’t deserve to die. Nobody deserves to die.
“On the same day for the past 10 years, four of us have lit candles where they died and laid flowers to pay our respects.
“Then we move up to Elgar field where we used to chill when we were kids and let off fireworks at exactly 4.14am, the time they died.
“I don’t know why we started letting off fireworks. The boys were a bit mad and we thought it would be something they would like, so we just carried on doing it.
“It’s a bit different, it’s a way for us to remember them.”
Liam Xuereb, then 22, and Anthony Thomas, who was 23, were both handed three-year jail sentences at Cardiff Crown Court in 2010 for their role in the December 2009 raid.
They had pleaded guilty to burglary and endangering the safety of rail passengers at an earlier hearing.
At the time of sentencing, Judge Patrick Curran QC told them: “The two young men killed were your close friends.
“The dangerousness of your conduct was demonstrated by the loss of their lives.”