Tonight:
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'I can't go to spot where 4x4 driver crushed my son'
Anna Davis8 Jan 2009
A MOTHER who saw her toddler crushed to death by a drink driver said she can no longer walk past the spot where he was killed.
Tina Woods, 31, watched in horror as a 4x4 driver veered off the road and rammed her 15-month-old son Finlay's pushchair into the gates of a school.
Katie Gutierrez-Perez, 40, was jailed for seven years at Snaresbrook crown court yesterday.
Mrs Woods still lives yards from the school in Chingford, which two of her other three children still attend.She said: "The children haven't been too bad about going back into school, but I take them another way now. I can't go back into that playground but I have to carry on for them.
"The result of the court case is the best I could have expected. We are taking each day as it comes.
"People have told us that we have closure now, but there isn't any. Every day is awful."
Mrs Woods was pushing Finlay in his pushchair outside Selwyn primary school last September when Guttierrez-Perez veered onto the pavement. She was driving to hospital after a failed suicide attempt, having binged on alcohol and taken 14 sleeping tablets.
Witnesses said that after the initial impact, the 4x4 repeatedly rammed into the gates, crushing Finlay's pushchair each time.
Mrs Woods's three other children were also there and now suffer flashbacks from the traumatic event.
Gutierrez-Perez lived a street away from the Woods family and ran a local café. She had tried to kill herself after she got into financial difficulties following the break-up of her 18-year marriage.
Mrs Woods's husband Roger, 31, a fitness instructor, said: "I don't feel anything for the woman who did this.
"We are still going through our own stages of grief to feel anything for her. It is a small community and everyone knows she is a drunk.
"At the end of the day I feel that no matter what, she can still go home to her children. Our sentence is for the rest of our lives."
Mr and Mrs Woods's family paid for them to take their three other children, Livvy, seven, Dillon, five, and Harvey, four, to Disneyland in Paris for Christmas.
Mr Woods said: "Christmas was awful. We went away because we didn't want to be here opening presents as everything would have been a reminder." The couple, who have no full family photograph of all their children together, paid tribute to their youngest child. Mrs Woods said: "Fin was such a happy boy. I know people always say that about their children, but everyone who knew him said it."
Judge Timothy King told Gutierrez-Perez: "I acknowledge that you have to live with Finlay's death on your conscience for the rest of your life, but your criminal behaviour that afternoon will have left its mark on this family for the rest of their lives."
Gutierrez-Perez pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving and driving without insurance at an earlier hearing. She was also disqualified from driving for 10 years.
Reader views (2)
I speak for nearly everybody in our small community of Highams Park, we don't feel the sentence was harsh enough for what could have been avoided. The poor Woods family, whom I see regularly down around the school, are commended at the way they have presented themselves at this tragic time, I watched Tina Woods on television last night - bless you.
RIP Finlay.
- Sandra, Highams Park, 08/01/2009 13:26
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I think the punishment should have been more than that
- Ahmed, london England, 08/01/2009 10:49
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