The family of a “beautiful” 10-year-old girl from Oldham killed by a dangerous driver in a crash have spoken of their indescribable “devastation”.

On Friday Mark Fensome, who caused the fatal crash, was sentenced to nine-years imprisonment and disqualified from driving for 12 years and six months at Manchester Minshull Steet Crown Court.

The court heard that on Saturday, December 18, 2021 the 43-year-old began driving down Ripponden Road in what witnesses described as an “erratic” and “aggressive” manner before turning right onto Coleridge Road.

During the manoeuvre Fensome, of Diggle Street, Shaw, moved onto the wrong side of the road and mounted the pavement hitting Lily Rose Morris, 10, and another child.

Lily later died in hospital. The other child, a friend of Lily’s, survived, suffering an ankle and head injury.

Fensome was arrested minutes after the crash and was found to have 1.5 times the legal limit of alcohol in his system along with traces of cannabis and amphetamine.

During Friday’s sentencing, the court heard heart-rending victim impact statements from the mothers of Lily and the other child.

Fighting back tears, Lily’s mother Melanie Hudson, said: “I will always have three children”, and described Lily as her “forever ten beautiful angel”.

She told the court that on the day of the crash, Lily had had her friend over for a sleepover. She said she asked the two children to walk to the chippy to “get some fresh air”, a trip she said they had both done a “million times”.

Ms Hudson said she gave her daughter Lily a kiss on the head before she left and tied her hair in pigtails.

She then recalled rushing to the scene of the crash a short time later and seeing Lily’s friend wrapped in a dressing gown. When she shouted to ask where Lily was, she said the child just looked at her.

It was then that she saw Lily lying on the grass verge surrounded by officers and medical staff.

As her voice cracked with emotion, she told the court: “I needed to get to her. It looked like they were trying to put a tent over her, and I was running and screaming don’t put a tent over her.”

Ms Hudson said when she was later taken to Lily, she tried to shake her to wake her up.

She told the court: “She had only gone to a chippy with her friend, how could this happen?”

Ms Hudson described the next few months as a “blur” and said that she would go to the road where Lily died to “feel closer to her” and to try and “figure out” what happened. She said she can still see the “outline” where Lily had been lying that day.

Turning to Christmas that year she said it was the “worst day” and that the snowflake stickers that Lily put on the window before her death are still there now as she cannot face taking them down.

Ms Hudson said a set of Lily’s pyjamas have been made into cuddly toys for her two siblings and that her four-year-old son now asks her, “Does everybody have a sister in heaven?”

Addressing Fensome, she said: “You will never know how many lives you have destroyed”, and that she will never be able to put into words the “devastation” that her family is going through.

The court was then read a statement by the other child’s mother.

In her emotional statement, she said that her daughter is now a “completely different child” after the crash and has “detached herself” from people and “pulled away” from other children.

She said her daughter has been left “angry” at “everything and everyone” and has not yet cried or grieved.

She added that her child still suffers from headaches and nosebleeds and continues to have issues with her foot.

Remembering the day of the crash she said that doctors told her that her daughter had suffered a head and brain injury but was “very lucky”.

She then got a call from Ms Hudson who she said was “screaming” that Lily had died.

She said she tried to make that Christmas “nice for the kids” but that it was not the same and that Christmas will now forever be a “sad time” for the family.

https://www.theoldhamtimes.co.uk/news/23733061.family-oldham-girl-killed-driver-share-devastation/