Horror on M6 as girl, 3, killed after Porsche driver does U-turn on motorway and smashes into oncoming car
A three-year-old girl was tragically killed after a Porshe driver turned around on the M6 and began driving in the wrong direction. Terence Unsworth, 79, appeared to deliberately perform a U-turn on the M6 near Leyland. Tragically, his Porsche Boxster smashed into Beth Dawson’s oncoming Vauxhall Meriva.
The Porsche instantly burst into flames with eye-witnesses saying it looked like a “fireball”, Lancs Live[1] reports. Unsworth, from Preston, was killed by the flames and Beth’s daughter, Faye Dawson, 3, was killed in the crash.
An inquest into Unsworth’s death at Preston Coroners Court heard that on November 19, Beth was driving on the M6 on her way home from taking her daughter to see the Illuminations in Blackpool, with Faye in the back seat.
But Unsworth was also on the motorway. The hearing heard how he indicated right after joining the M6, before he performed a dangerous U-turn and began driving the wrong way down the southbound carriageway. He then smashed into Beth’s oncoming Vauxhall.
Assistant Coroner Richard Taylor, who saw CCTV footage of Unsworth joining the motorway but which wasn’t played in court, said: “He doesn’t meander. He stops and simply turns. It seems to be a deliberate action.” PC Rachel Carberry said the footage showed two cars in front of Beth’s Vauxhall before the crash.
She said: “He has entered the sliproad correctly then when he got to the give way lines he has stopped, indicated and done a U-turn. It was a clear and obvious turn in the wrong direction. There were two vehicles in front of Miss Dawson, around 500 metres prior to the collision, they moved out of that lane but I don’t have any evidence to say when that occurred [as they were obscured by a HGV).
“It was completely impossible for Miss Dawson to avoid that collision.” PC Carberry also said the motorway was well-lit at the time of the collision while the road surface was dry, despite it raining earlier, and had no defects. While the Porse was “severely damaged by the fire” she could find no faults with the car to account for the crash.
A post-mortem carried out by Home Office pathologist Dr Alison Armour found that Unsworth, who was fitted with a pacemaker roughly a decade earlier, suffered an acute myocardial thrombus and his coronary arteries were “severely narrowed”. However, the court was told the potential side-effects of confusion could not explain his actions. Dr Armour said: “The histology identified severe narrowing and it also identified severe calcification.
Calcification is a degenerative age-related change.” No other medical history was heard during the inquest. Assistant Coroner Richard Taylor said: “I think the difficulty with instances such as these is that we would all like to understand Mr Unsworth’s decision-making but it seems that we will never be able to do that.
“I have seen the CCTV and there doesn’t seem to be anything unusual about his driving except for the decision, not only to indicate to turn right, but to perform a U-turn and proceed down the motorway the wrong way.”
References
- ^ Lancs Live (www.lancs.live)
- ^ ‘It was a complete brutal onslaught…’ – Motorist knocked out cold by stranger on petrol station forecourt (www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk)
- ^ Man performed ‘revolting’ sex act in front of student on Megabus to Manchester (www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk)