Officer tells of horror at scene of crash that killed six

Published on 10/02/2009 21:08

A POLICE officer yesterday described to a jury the harrowing scene he witnessed after a family of six was wiped out in a motorway collision.

David and Michelle Statham, of Llandudno, north Wales, and their four children Reece, 13, Jay, nine, Mason, 20 months and ten-week-old Ellouise, were killed instantly in the accident on the M6 last October.

The prosecution at Chester Crown Court says Portuguese lorry driver Paulo Jorge Nogueira da Silva, 46, was not paying attention to the road when his 40-tonne large goods vehicle ploughed into the Statham family's Toyota Previa as it sat at the back of a traffic queue at Sandbach, Cheshire.

It has been suggested to the jury that da Silva may have been using a sat nav system on a laptop computer as he drove along the motorway.

Sergeant David Cox, motorway supervisor for Cheshire Police, was one of the first officers at the scene of the crash.

He described terrible injuries suffered, particularly by David and Ellouise, after the Statham car was pushed under a Volvo lorry which was ahead of them in the queuing traffic and burst into flames.

Sgt Cox said the crash scene was so horrific that it was impossible to determine the make of the car or how many people had been in the vehicle.

Da Silva, of Murcia, Spain, denies six charges of causing death by dangerous driving and six alternative charges of causing death by careless driving.

His defence will claim the family was already dead when his vehicle struck their car because Mrs Statham had seconds earlier crashed into the Volvo lorry.

The trial continues.