To actually feel sorry for the woman driving the car in the Wimbledon car accident

[bagpuss90]

I’m sure I’ll be flamed here . I totally sympathise with the bereaved parents- I can’t stress that enough. I can understand them wanting justice . As we know the driver of the car suffered an epileptic seizure at the wheel - she had no history of epilepsy. I don’t see what she could have done differently. She has to live with what she did although it wasn’t her fault. AIBU to feel quite sorry for her ?

Obviously she doesn't have to make her medical information public, but people will talk regardless and they will refuse to be shut up and no one can make them.

I'm pretty sure the driver didn't actually utter the words 'I am sorry' though. Yes it was an accident but with the most horrendous outcome and so not to at least say sorry is unthinkable.

Surely this would go against the advice of the car insurance company. Standard advice is not to say sorry because it could be construed as an admission of guilt.

How do you know?

Totally irrelevant

I don’t think anything should be published. I think the parents deserve more transparency than they obviously feel they’ve been given.

Which doesn’t make one jot of difference. If there has been an investigation and it has been decided that there is no case to answer - that in effect she is not to blame by reason of a medical incident. End of. No-one elses’ business.

Do we know (or need to know) if the driver said sorry to the parents? We also don't know (or need to know) what medical evidence was made available to the parents. Isn't it possible that the medical evidence relating directly to the accident has been supplied but they want to see much more of her confidential medical records?

It was a question, not a suggestion, based on others' comments on the thread. Please don't put words in my mouth. I'm trying to post with equanimity and thoughtfulness on a very delicate subject in a thread where not everyone is doing the same, so please go find someone else to pick a fight with.

My sister had petit mal as a child, no blackouts from age 16, got a driving licence at 30, had one epileptic fit in her 50's, thankfully not whilst driving.
Her GP said she was no more likely to have another one than the next person and 10 years later she hasn't

But it is their business. They've lost two wonderful children due to this woman. If they think there has been a cover-up or the evidence hasn't been properly considered, they're entitled to shout this from the rooftops to whoever will listen. They can't be silenced.

And yes, ultimately the decision may be right and there may be no case for this woman to answer. But to say it's not the school's or the parents' business is wrong. Just as the CPS is entitled to decide not to prosecute, they are entitled to disagree with and challenge this decision publicly, as loudly as they feel they need to.

My friend had a car crash through her fence. She had a play set on the other side and it was just luck that there were no children playing on it. The driver had a heart attack (and died). His wife was next to him.
Accidents happen. My friend got killed by a woman who had a bee in her car and veered off the road.
@Sirine1708 you are incorrect. Epilepsy is if you have more than one seizure (hence the name). You can have a seizure at any time - my MIL had one (and only one) in her 70s. I wonder, unless the woman has had seizures since, if the press or police are mistaken in calling it epilepsy. A single event seizure is not epilepsy. But I know women who had their first seizure (and subsequently others and was diagnosed with epilepsy) after giving birth, or other event, as well as out of the blue.
Saying she has an expensive house - well the Study is not a cheap school - fees are almost £6000 a term. The parents can afford good lawyers too.

Time travel, innit?

BBC News: Nuria Sajjad and Selena Lau died after a Land Rover crashed into an end-of-term tea party at The Study Preparatory School in Wimbledon on 6 July 2023.

The interior design piece:

The interview with Clare Freemantle featured in this post took place in February 2023.

Yes I stand by that. I have not said she was driving dangerously.

I do agree with this. But then again, the vast majority of people will do anything possible to avoid going to jail. Most people will try and find some kind of loophole or get out clause or reason/excuse, to avoid jail time. Why would you go to jail, if you could find a way not to?

I know a woman who hounded and harassed 2 women she fell out with, sending anonymous emails to them, and ringing them late at night and hanging up, and sending pizzas and takeaways to them, and ambulances and fire engines, and also telling lies to their employer to get them into trouble. She was charged with harassment against these 2 women and was warned she could serve 3-6 months in jail.

In court, she claimed diminished responsibly and extreme depression and she cried in the dock. She admitted it all and said sorry, and the magistrate gave her 3 months suspended sentence. Got away with it after making the lives of these 2 women miserable for over a year.

Outside the court, she grinned at them, and laughed at them as she got into her car. She had totally laid it on.

I am not saying this woman in the car was faking anything, and I am sure she didn't laugh at anyone.

I'm just saying that things aren't always what they seem, and some people will do anything in their power to avoid jail time. So I do wonder, (with the reaction of people to the outcome of the court case,) if there is more to it all than we are hearing about.

Sorry but this is wrong. My mum was diagnosed with epilepsy after her first seizure in her 40s. She has been on medication ever since but has never had another. Diagnosis on her medical records is epilepsy.

Where did you see February 2023? Genuinely asking as I’ve seen a different date.

I wasn’t talking about the parents or the veracity of the decision, but answering a poster who seemed to think that the woman should make her private medical information public in order to stop people talking.

Bottom of the article.

It was actually 6th July last year.

The posters are referring to the date of the interior design article.

You are quite wrong. A friend’s 40 year old son had an out of the blue epileptic seizure that killed him. He had no previous history of epilepsy or seizures and appeared perfectly fit and well on the day it happened. A post mortem revealed no other underlying medical reason. My friend was told that epilepsy can occur for the first time at any age and first time seizures sometimes occur as a result of a stroke or a brain tumour. Fortunately, my friend’s son was at home when his seizure happened, but he could just as easily have been driving. I can’t imagine that the CPS would have dropped the case if there wasn’t convincing medical evidence, so it’s wrong to speculate on the driver’s culpability in this case.

I think you've misunderstood. The article they're referring to is the interior design one about the driver's bathroom. She gave the interview in Feb 2023, before the accident although it looks like it wasn't published until earlier this year.

There is a massive difference between a prolonged and calculated incident of harassment and an unexpected epileptic fit.

In essence this woman is relying on her private medical information to avoid a public, criminal charge for killing these two girls. That obviously makes it of intense interest to the families and friends of those killed and injured and blurs the line between the private and the public. While they may not be entitled to review the private medical information and she may be entitled to keep it private, they are right to state publicly in uncategorical terms that they are unconvinced that justice has been done. How can they be convinced? They haven't seen the evidence and it hasn't been examined by a court.