NORTH-EAST MUM SEEKS £320,000 FROM DRIVER WHO HIT DAUGHTER
School bus campaigner sues over girl’s death
By Stephen Christie and Shona Gossip
Published: 29/07/2010
A road safety campaigner whose teenage daughter was killed after stepping off a school bus is suing the driver of the car which killed her.
Carla Oldham claims justice has never been done for 15-year-old Robyn, who was hit by a car being driven by Gillian Ancell on the A947 Banff to Aberdeen road.
She claimed initially yesterday that the damages she is seeking would not be enough to buy a second hand car – but the Press and Journal has learned the amount is £325,000.
Mrs Oldham insisted last night that the case was not about money, but was aimed at getting Mrs Ancell to accept that she was partly to blame for Robyn’s death.
But Mrs Ancell accused her of looking for “revenge” and said that dragging the dead teenager’s name through the courts was “disrespectful”.
She added that she had contemplated suicide after the accident.
Mrs Ancell was driving a Mercedes near the Oldhams’ former family home at Birkenhills Farm House, Turriff, when the accident happened on September 4, 2008.
Mrs Oldham said: “It still absolutely mystifies me how she managed to hit Robyn.
“Gillian Ancell saw Robyn down the road, saw her wave at somebody on the bus and knew she was about to cross the road, yet she failed to stop.
“How does that happen?”
Mrs Ancell faced no charges over the accident.
Since her daughter’s death, Mrs Oldham, who still lives near Turriff, has campaigned to make it illegal for vehicles to overtake stationary school buses.
She hoped a fatal accident inquiry held earlier this year would help bring about those changes.
After the two-day court hearing, however, the sheriff who oversaw it made no recommendations.
Mrs Ancell told the inquiry she had been driving at the speed limit of 50mph and did not realise it was a school bus she was passing. Robyn ran out in front of her with her back to her, she said.
Mrs Oldham said: “I’m not trying to become some bitter parent. I just want the truth and I just want to see justice done. I feel I’ve never really received that.”
She added: “They could pay out £25million as far as I’m concerned and it would make no difference – no amount of money can bring back Robyn.
“I feel there should be some acceptance or acknowledgement on Gillian Ancell’s part. It’s partly her fault, after all.”
Mrs Oldham said the family had had to move away from Birkenhills Farm House, near Turriff, as every time she saw the stretch of the A947 Banff-Aberdeen road where the accident happened she “would picture Robyn lying there”.
Mrs Ancell, 55, of Kestrel Road, Newburgh, said last night she had no knowledge of the lawsuit but she and her husband Peter, 49, had discussed what they would do if Mrs Oldham raised an action.
She said: “We don’t want to, but we said in the end that we would counter-sue her.
“To me, she is still a very grieving mother who wants to hit out at me because the law was on my side.
“If the sheriff had thought I caused the accident and killed her daughter, the courts would have prosecuted me. She didn’t get what she wanted at the court so revenge is the next thing for her.”
Mrs Ancell added: “The last thing I thought Mrs Oldham would have wanted to do is keep dragging this through courts, because all she’s doing now is hurting herself.
“It won’t change the fact that Robyn is no longer here. Nothing will bring her back. Me suing her, or her suing me, will only drag the memory of Robyn through the courts and that’s disrespectful.”
The former care assistant, who now works as a domestic supervisor for the NHS, said the accident had turned her life “upside down” and she had suffered from depression and vivid flashbacks since it happened.
Mrs Ancell said: “Without my family through all this, I would not be here. When I found out Robyn had died, I just didn’t want to live. I just kept asking why it couldn’t have happened to me, especially when I found out Robyn was only 15 – it’s so unfair.
“I couldn’t go to work. I was in a right state and I was depressed. I had the most colourful flashbacks both when my eyes were open and shut.
“I smile, I laugh and I joke but Robyn Oldham is always there, and her mother. She’s never out of my prayers, ever.”
In his ruling after the fatal accident inquiry at Banff Sheriff Court, Sheriff Gordon Fleetwood concluded that, on the evidence he had heard, he was not persuaded a change in the law could be recommended.
Mrs Oldham claimed the sheriff had “missed a chance” to make Scotland’s roads safer.
Her personal injury claim has been raised at the Court of Session in Edinburgh by lawyers Digby Brown. It seeks damages totalling £320,000 for Mrs Oldham and her family.