‘I ain’t hit no-one’, man said after mother died in lorry collision

A young woman was killed while pushing her daughter in a pram because crane equipment had not been secured properly on a lorry, a court has heard.Rebecca Ableman, 30, was with her two-year-old daughter beside the B1050 in Willingham, Cambridgeshire, when she was struck by a lorry in September 2022.Kevin Miller, 70, of Lynn, denies causing death by dangerous driving and is currently on trial at Peterborough Crown Court.

On the second day of his trial, the court heard that if the crane equipment had been secured properly, the incident would not have happened.Prosecutor William Carter called Keith Silvester, the technical manager of The Association of Lorry Loader Manufacturers and Importers (ALLMI).Mr Carter asked Mr Silvester: “The boom and grapple [of the crane] had moved over to the left hand side so the grapple hung over the side of the trailer.

“Is it your position that if the boom and grapple were strapped down, none of this would have happened?” Mr Silvester said: “Yes.”Mr Silvester also agreed that the log grapple attachment on Miller’s vehicle moved to the left, which meant it was not secured or anchored adequately. Jurors had been told told Miller was transporting scrap metal from the Lynn docks to two Network Rail depots in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex and March, Cambs on 22 September.

The court was told that the loose unsecured crane equipment moved from its position – and was hanging over the edge of the trailer and the footpath in Willingham.Ms Ableman had left a farm shop on Station Road with her daughter Autumn when she was struck by the moving lorry just before 11:15am.The NHS healthcare assistant suffered “very serious head and brain injuries”, Mr Carter said on day one of the trial.

Ms Ableman died three weeks later on October 16 of traumatic brain injury in the Neuro ICU of Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. The last exchange partner Chris Tuczemskyi and Ms Ableman had together were texts about whether they should get fish and chips for dinner.Last year, Autumn, now aged four, started school for the first time. Dad Chris said life was “still hard”.

The courtroom gallery was packed and there were several members of Ms Ableman’s family, including partner Chris Tuczemskyi.Jurors were told that Miller claimed he did not know there had been an incident until he was arrested at about 1:45pm.He said he would have stopped if he had known about the collision and officers heard him say: “What’s happened mate? I ain’t hit no-one”, Mr Carter said.The trial continues.