Can the parents reach closure with this?

[mids2019]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw4448xx4keo

Horrible tragedy but the driver was completely innocent having had an epileptic seizure with none previously occuring. The problem seems to be the parents can't accept this. Should they have been advised against not making a statement as it will probably exacerbate the huge guilt felt by the driver for no reason.

The guilt she will be experiencing, even though it was outwith her control, will be immense.

They will never get closure. I don't think chasing the driver is the best option maybe campaigning for something like a dead man's switch when the car detects it's out of control (that car would have been screaming) and for school to be designed with sufficient fencing/layout to stop it happening again.

Or for people not to drive tanks on the streets of Wimbledon.

The whole process is just slow even to get to CPS. It's taken someone I know 2 years for an inquest for something straight forward.

When I first heard and saw pictures of the crash site, I was of course like everyone so sorry and still am for the loss of the lifes of those lovely children & the grief their families will always face.
My next thought was that car was huge & looked like it was built like a tank.
That car surely had a higher risk of harm to the children effected that day than if the driver was in a micra.
In towns of high pedestrian areas ie schools with high percentages of small children; the feasibility of allowing huge off road vehicles in such areas needs to be considered.
With people driving bigger and bigger cars , the risks to pedestrians in accidents gets higher.

“Ms Narwal said the CPS had considered Ms Freemantle's medical records and received evidence from neurological specialists who agreed it was the first seizure she had experienced.”

I believe the "lack of closure" could be that one could argue the first time seizure may have been 'caused' by lack of sleep, an alcoholic drink the night before, medication for depression/menopause etc.etc.
So tragic, there will be no closure for either party. Life is tragic sometimes.

It’s a really sad story.

The only thing I could think would be there’s some history amongst the parents and the driver and the parents don’t feel she’s been investigated thoroughly enough. I’m not sure what evidence can be provided to prove someone has had a seizure, is there medical evidence to prove this? I don’t think I could rest until I’d seen it in black and white.

I think it’s normal to want someone to be to blame when you have suffered such an awful tragedy.

I can’t imagine that anyone (the girls families, the driver and her family, the teachers, the students or the community) involved will ever fully recover from this.

Yes, there is medical evidence

There will presumably be an inquest at which the parents and victims will hear the evidence.

I suppose the worry is, if this happened to you and you had a fit out of the blue, and medical examinations were made, and they found that indeed you had previous fits but you actually didnt know about them (this is possible), you could be accused of having previous fits and lying about it.

Scary thought, particularly for those of us who have migraines (which often feel like brain damage to me when they're really bad)

The chances of this exact sequence of events happening must be tiny and it would be so hard to accept it was nothing more sinister than bad luck. And I think it is natural to suspect the worst, simply because how unlucky do you have to be for that to be the first ever seizure or even sign of a seizure?

Hopefully the inquest brings them some closure. I agree that just being told oh it was a tragic accident isn't enough.

Even their lawyer sounded apologetic when he spoke on the news today. He gave the impression that he knew that the decision by the CPS was the right one, but recognised that the parents were struggling with not having heard the evidence themselves.

@Dora33 @Metempsychosis that defender has automatic emergency breaking that should have kicked in the question is why it didn't and what can be done to make it kick in better in future. The defender has a 71% pedestrian safety rating the mini countryman is only 64% the X5 is 75% that's before you consider occupant safety!

It must be so difficult for the parents to have to accept the outcome without actually seeing the evidence and (presumably) only having limited information about exactly what has been investigated.

They've focused on 'medical evidence' which is an obvious starting/key point. But in determining whether there was any fault I would hope that they've also gone much deeper than that and looked at personal phone records and messages, employment sick days etc. I would hope anyway. Certainly if I'd been impacted by this I think I'd want to be 100% certain that these avenues were explorered thoroughly.

Unbelievably tragic, sad.
Very sad for everyone involved.

The driver not only would have had extensive alcohol and drugs testing, but also medical tests to support her case, that will have left the Judge in no doubt. It was beyond tragic the timing. I don’t know how the driver begins to overcome her own life sentence; how she will ever recover. The parents are traumatised and will never recover. It’s just awful.

Unbelievably tragic. But since it was her first seizure. She couldn't have anticipated it or done about it. To have to live with that knowledge must be absolute torture for her as well.

The poor woman killed two little girls after suffering a horrible and unexpected medical emergency, was thrown in a cell and treated as a criminal until proven innocent. Her life is ruined forever just as these girls’ families’ lives have been and my heart goes out to her.

And now also has to with the fact that on top of all that she has some sort of seizure condition.

There's no good outcome here, just heartbreak all around.

Her life is ruined forever just as these girls’ families’ lives have been and my heart goes out to her

Very poorly worded. I hardly think the level of 'ruin' is the same, do you? Which position would you rather be in, hers or the parents?

I don't think it's necessary to 'grade' the suffering involved here. Lives have been ruined. Only the people involved know exactly how that feels.

They might have good reason to think that that they arent sharing right now. CPS is not an infallible institution.

You mean seizure saying fit is offensive to people with epilepsy.