Blunkett Bobby's tears as she is accused of causing car crash which killed her teenage son and his friend

A police community support officer broke down yesterday as a court heard how she caused a crash that left her son and his best friend dead.

Helen Murray was driving with son Luke and his friend Terence McMahon, both 13, when she turned right into the path of a Transit van thought to be travelling at nearly 50mph.

Northampton Magistrates’ Court was told how witnesses described seeing a body fly clear of her Ford Ka at the moment of impact.

Luke’s German shepherd puppy Remus was also killed in the crash.

Murray, 38, who was not working at the time of the collision, drove straight across the carriageway as she made the right turn without stopping at the junction, the court was told.

Sarah Brooks, prosecuting, said that Murray was guilty of ‘inattention’ for failing to spot the van approaching.

She denies a single charge of driving without due care and attention.

Transit driver Alan Scales had been returning from Leicestershire when the
incident happened on the A247 in Corby, Northamptonshire, in April last year.

Miss Brooks said Mr Scales ‘could not avoid the collision’.

‘She (Murray) should have seen oncoming traffic – she failed to do so and failed to act appropriately in the circumstances,’ Miss Brooks said.

‘The competent and careful driver would have remained at the right turn arrow and waited until the Transit had gone away,’ she added.

Mr Scales, a former lorry driver, said he remembered a Renault in front of him had pulled into the slip road to turn left, then he saw the Ford Ka cut across the road.

‘I tried to swerve into the middle of the road to get round the back of the car but I was just too close, there was

nothing I could do,’ he said. Mr Scales’s van ended up on its side, further down the road, as a result of the crash.

Victims: Helen Murray was driving when Luke (left) and Terence McMahon, were killed in a road accident

Renault driver Tim Carey said he saw Murray’s car preparing to turn right.

He said: ‘It made the move in

one manoeuvre, it did not come to a complete stop.’

As the car turned he saw the Transit van over his shoulder.

He added: ‘The Ford was hit on the side, I saw a body fly out of the car, debris was smashed into the air all around.’

The van did not appear to be doing anything out of the ordinary and had been driving in its own lane, he said.

PC Gary Wood, from Northamptonshire Police’s Collision Investigation Unit, said the van was estimated to be travelling 2mph below the 50mph speed limit at the point of collision.

Rob Bimpson, defending, said two motorists had reported being overtaken by Mr Scales before the collision, and suggested that the van could have been travelling as fast as 65mph.

Rod McKinnon, collision expert for the defence, said the post-impact speed of the van was 37mph which suggested its original speed was between 60 and 65mph.

Murray’s police interview was read to the court in which she said she had been taking the boys and the dog to Luke’s girlfriend’s house at the time of the crash.

She told officers she remembered turning, seeing a square headlight followed by ‘a swishing sensation’.

She said the airbag had been activated and when she came to, she realised Luke had been thrown from the car.

‘I ran up to Luke and he was just lying there, just staring, and I remember somebody pulling me away,’ she said.

Murray told officers she was wary of the junction because it was a ‘fast’ road, and she usually stopped at it before turning right.

The case continues.