Carnage of road tragedy

Reporter: Jennifer Hollamby
Date published: 17 November 2008


THE people killed in a horror smash in Chadderton have been named.

Paul Bunting (30), Christopher Morrison (23) and Cassie Fox died when their Vauxhall Vectra hit a garden wall and flipped on to its roof near to the Broadway junction in Middleton Road.

A card reading: “I will miss you always mummy. Love baby Lewis”, suggests Cassie was a mother.

And a young woman is critically ill in hospital following the accident in the early hours of Sunday morning.

It is believed that the women, who may be from Collyhurst, were being given a lift home by the men, thought to be from Middleton, following a night out in Oldham.

At around 3.30am, police tried to stop the car for running a red light in Mumps.

It halted but then drove off at high speed and police struggled to keep up as it was chased along Oldham Way, down Middleton Road and across the Broadway junction where the driver lost control.

Residents reported hearing a sound like a bomb exploding and emerged from their homes to a scene of devastation.

Gareth Burns (33) woke up to find his wall and front garden destroyed, and his bay window so badly damaged that it has moved 11/2 inches after the car careered into it.

He said: “My wife heard sirens and then a sound like an explosion.

“It was so loud that she thought something must have either come into the house or the walls had gone. My immediate instinct was to check my two children were okay. I looked out of the window and from the sound of the impact and the state of the car it was clear that the people inside must be dead.

“There’s a dip at the end of our road and you feel it when you’re driving at 30, never mind at 80.

“What happened is an absolute tragedy. It’s just a moment of stupidity. The people in the car didn’t set out for this to happen, they probably just wanted to get home. You don’t ever want it to end up like this.”

Middleton Road, at its junction with Broadway and Hunt Lane, remained closed for much of yesterday as police cleared the site.

Rosemary Curry (44), who lives almost opposite the crash site, was one of the first on the scene with her neighbour Karen Gebb.

She said: “We saw a young police officer looking quite shaken and asked what we could do. He asked us to go and speak to the girl who had been sitting behind the driver because she was still breathing.

“We couldn’t see her face because of her position, but we stroked her leg and tried to keep her spirits up.

“I don’t know whether she could hear us, but I hope she knew we were there. I’m a mother and that girl needed someone with her.

“I hope what we did helped her. If anything happened to my children, I would want somebody else to do the same.

“At that point, I didn’t realise there were three others in the car who were dead. It’s utterly horrendous. I’ve not been able to sleep since because I can’t get it out of my mind.”

Residents said that there had been around six crashes on the stretch of road in the last two years.

Ms Curry said: “Every night, we see cars whizzing by really quickly, sometimes with police cars behind them.

“We need a speed camera on this stretch and a camera for the lights which separate the two sections of Middleton Road.”

Early indications suggest that the Vectra, which was a hire car, was some distance from the police vehicle when it crashed.

Supt Alan Greene, who is in charge of the traffic network section at Greater Manchester Police, said: “The vehicle was going at considerable speed, so much so that the police car could not keep up with it.”

The Independent Police Complaints Commission will be launching a full investigation into the incident.