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Damages For Mother of Dead Girl

The award was made against the Motor Insurers' Bureau A mother who saw her daughter knocked over and killed by an uninsured driver has been awarded substantial damages.

Eight-year-old Jasmine Franklin died when a car crashed into a garden on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, in August 1999.

The High Court in London heard on Tuesday how Sally Farrow was "paralysed by grief" after witnessing the death of her daughter at a friend's barbecue.

Driver Darrell Pope, then 28, of Edward Road, Queenborough, Sheppey, was jailed for seven years in December that year.

'Catastrophic consequences'

The award was against the Motor Insurers' Bureau, which compensates the victims of uninsured drivers.

Speaking at the High Court, Mr Justice Butterfield said the crash had had catastrophic consequences for Mrs Farrow, who was aged 29 at the time.

"It has had a profound effect upon her psychiatric condition and she has developed post-traumatic stress disorder and an abnormal grief reaction," he said.

"She is in effect paralysed by the grief that she has sustained."

The judge ordered that the exact amount of the "substantial" damages should not be made public because of concern for Mrs Farrow.

© BBC – Story filed 12th April 2005

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