A grieving father stormed out of court after the driver who ran over his 11-year-old daughter avoided jail time.
Matthew Boshell told a judge ‘this is a s***show’ and described how he had to make the devastating decision to turn off Isabelle’s life support after the horrific crash on October 22.
The Warwick Crown Court heard how 53-year-old Ola Onubogu was over the speed limit when he struck the young girl.
Isabelle was rushed to a hospital where she died four days later.
Judge Anthony Potter told Onubogu: “There is nothing you can do and nothing I can do that can possibly take away the pain Isabelle’s family suffer and will continue to suffer for the rest of their lives.
“You accept you were travelling at greater than the speed limit and at a stage where you approached where Isabelle was walking there is a pedestrian crossing and ‘slow’ painted on the surface.
“She came from the right side, running between traffic behind a van, and because of your speed you were unable to stop.”
“You are a parent yourself. It is impossible to imagine what goes through a parent’s mind when they are faced with the decision on whether they should allow life support to be withdrawn – and they had to make that decision,” the judge continued.
“There are no words that could possibly express the loss the Boshell family has suffered.
“Had you obeyed the speed limit on that road, no matter how unpredictable Isabelle’s actions might have been, you would have been able to avoid that accident.”
Graham Russell, prosecuting, also said: “Many children cannot judge how fast cars are going or how far away they are, and it may have been shielded from her view by another car travelling in the opposite direction.
“She began to run across the road.
“If the defendant did not see her start to run, she would first have been visible just a second later when she emerged from the rear of a passing van.”
The schoolgirl was taken to Birmingham Children’s Hospital but she died four days later.
Before Mr. Boshel walked out of court, he read a statement and said: “Every day I wake up and have to come to the realisation that Isabelle is no longer with us.
“The pain left behind is like nothing I have ever felt. It is with me every second I am awake.
“When they turned the machine off we watched her lips turn blue and her hands go cold.
“Walking out of the room was the hardest thing I have ever had to do.”
Onubogu also said in a statement: “I have children of my own and cannot believe my actions have placed the family of another child in such pain.”
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