‘I had to carry my mum’s coffin because the man she trusted took her from us’

A heartbroken daughter said she had to carry her mum’s coffin after she died in a horror crash with a bin lorry. Michelle Atherton’s boyfriend Kevin Marsh drank gin and snorted cocaine as he watched a Bear Grylls show on Netflix hours before getting behind the wheel[1]. He then smashed his Ford Fiesta into the wagon head-on collision.

Ms Atherton died aged 47 in the incident.[2] Marsh attempted to pin the blame on her, claiming that she had grabbed the steering wheel immediately beforehand. But he was yesterday convicted of causing death by dangerous driving following a trial at Liverpool Crown Court[4], having admitted the lesser charge of causing death by careless driving while under the influence of drink or drugs. The unanimous verdict was delivered on Wednesday afternoon after two hours and 41 minutes of deliberations by a jury of four men and eight women.

Marsh returned to the same court to be sentenced this morning, Thursday. The father-of-three stood with his head bowed and appeared emotional, having been seen wiping away tears earlier in the hearing, as he was jailed for 16 years by Judge David Aubrey KC. He will be required to serve at least two thirds of this term before being released on licence.

Marsh was also banned from driving for 18 years. Statements were read out to the court on behalf of two of Ms Atherton’s four children during his sentencing. Her daughter Alleisha Atherton said of her mum: “She was bursting with happy plans for the future with her grandchildren, who she idolised.

“Then, my life changed forever when I got a knock on the door to tell me my mum had been involved in a road traffic collision. She had tried and fought so hard for her life for an hour and sadly didn’t pull through. “I didn’t want to believe it.

I thought I was stuck in a horrible nightmare. “I still feel like that to this day. It’s on constant repeat.

“She was gone because of someone’s careless actions and selfish choices. I later found out she had been asking for me at the scene of the incident and I wasn’t there for her. “This will live with me for the rest of my life.

The fact that, at my mum’s tragic end, she called for me and I wasn’t there for her – when she needed me most, I wasn’t there. “The last time I saw my beautiful mum, I had to identify her body. I can still see the pink, flowery blanket over her.

“I will never forget her face or the way her body lay. I could not stroke her face or hair or tell her how much I loved her. “I was forced to say goodbye with a closed coffin.

I was denied the chance to see her beautiful face one more time. “All I have left are pictures and memories. I feel like a part of me is missing.”

Alleisha stated that her two children “idolised” their grandma, but she had to take her young son to her grave on his birthday as he wanted to “share his special day with his nan”. The 26-year-old added: “My baby boy looks at her picture and says ‘nan, nan, in the sky. They will never watch Cars or Harry Potter together again.

“She was so loving and an absolutely amazing mother. I can only dream to be half the mother she was. “She was inspirational.

She was and always will be my queen. “We have lost everything, now I am alone. I don’t have the one person who understood me better than anyone else.

“My mum is going to miss my daughter’s first birthday and Christmas. She was with me last Christmas, so excited for her granddaughter to be born – now I will have to leave an empty chair at the table. “When will this nightmare stop?

I have to be strong but it’s so hard when I’m breaking inside. “The only person I want is never coming back. I have had to carry my mum’s coffin because the man she trusted and cared about took her from us – he took her away from four children and six grandchildren.

“This is not over. This is just the beginning. I’m left with a massive hole that just cannot be filled.

“Now surviving and existing is the best I can hope for. We can try to continue with our lives and look up to the sky and make her proud.” A statement was also read on behalf of one of her sons, Michael Hopwood.

He said: “Losing my mum is the most painful and heart breaking thing I’ve ever been through. “She could light up any room she graced her presence with. I don’t eat, can’t sleep and I don’t want to go out – I want to be with my mum.

“It is so hard to try and live a life without her. She was my rock. “She was always there for me when I was down.

Now she is gone. “She had her whole life ahead of her. The most heart breaking thing is, she won’t meet her unborn grandchild.

“She will be forever loved by all of her grandkids. My mum was the best mum I could ever ask for. “She was so loved.

I feel lost without my mum. “She got took away from her family too soon. I will never be at peace with this.”

Sentencing, Judge Aubrey said: “Lives have now changed forever, and her family will never be the same. She was, to them, the best mum to her sons and daughter, and their children have lost their grandmother and she will now never have the opportunity of seeing her children grow up or seeing any unborn grandchildren. “She died alone in that car, you having left her to die alone because you were only thinking of your selfish self.

Whilst at the scene she was calling out for her daughter – it haunts her daughter that she was left alone to die. “Michelle Atherton, notwithstanding some issues she had, has been described as a kind-hearted and wonderful mother and grandmother. The family are left to mourn and grieve and will do so for the rest of their lives.

“There is no sentence I can pass that will begin to equate for the loss of life and suffering sustained by the family and all those who loved Michelle Atherton. There is nothing the court can do or say that will reduce the suffering spoken of.” Arthur Gibson told the jury during the prosecution’s opening last week that the refuse vehicle involved in the smash left the depot on Parr Street in St Helens[5] at around 6.45am on July 5 last year in order to commence a round in the Newton-le-Willows[6] area.

This route took its crew eastbound along Broad Oak Road, a 30mph road where the “surface was damp, if not wet, from earlier rainfall”. As the truck approached the bend near to the junction with Delta Road, its driver noticed a white Ford Fiesta which was travelling in the opposite direction at an estimated speed of between 52mph and 54mph. This car then “suddenly steered to the right” and veered into the wagon’s path, colliding “head-on” despite an “immediate correction back towards the left”.

Footage of the fatal crash captured by the lorry’s dashcam was shown to jurors. One member of Ms Atherton’s family sat in the public gallery with his hands on his head as the video was played, while one woman walked out of the courtroom. Mr Gibson told the court that Marsh had been the driver of the car, with his then partner being the front seat passenger.

She was “severely injured” in the incident and was pronounced dead at 8.48am the same day after being taken to Aintree[7] Hospital. The prosecutor said: “What of Mr Marsh? It seems that he may have been knocked unconscious, or at the very least dazed, as a result of the collision because, for a while, he remained in the car.

“But he did not stay there. Having got out of the car and recovered from the immediate effects of the collision, he started to walk away up Delta Road. “It seems he turned right down an alleyway which ran along the back of the houses which border Broad Oak Road before entering the back garden of one of the houses and going down the side of the house, until he returned to the pavement of Broad Oak Road.

Having done so, he went and knocked on the door of a house occupied by Mr Lewis Molyneux and his partner. “What would you have expected Mr Marsh to say to Mr Molyneux when he opened the door? Something like, ‘please can you help me, I’ve been injured in a car crash and my partner is still in the car, badly injured’?

“Mr Marsh did not say that, or anything like that. He asked Mr Molyneux to call him a taxi. “In the distance, Mr Molyneux could see the crash and asked the defendant whether that was his car. ‘No’, replied Mr Marsh, ‘I was in town and jumped on my way home’, and repeated his request for a taxi, which Mr Molyneux proceeded to book for him using an app on his phone.”

But Marsh was then spotted by refuse staff and made to remain in the area until the police arrived. The 43-year-old said to the workers as they walked him back towards the wrecked car: “What car, I don’t have a car?” He told another binman: “I wasn’t driving that car.

It’s my cousin’s car. “You’re not setting me up are you? You’d better not be f***ing setting me up?”

As they approached the scene, he continued: “Ah s***. That’s not my car. It’s my sister’s.

What’s it doing here?” Mr Gibson said of this: “You will of course have noticed that, in all his utterances, he did not ask once after Ms Atherton, who was still in the car being tendered to by a member of the public who happened to be an off-duty nurse.” Once handed over to officers, Marsh told them: “Don’t be blaming me for this s***.

Listen, this has nothing to do with me, I got a taxi here. “I’ve not drove that car. I’ve not been in that car.”

Marsh also claimed to one PC that he had been “walking down the road when the accident happened”. He was said to have “changed his tune momentarily” when he told paramedics he had been “sat in the driver’s seat”, but upon his arrival at Belle Vale Police Station “changed his mind again” and said: “I don’t remember driving that f***ing car.” The dad was subsequently taken to Whiston Hospital as a result of his injuries.

The court heard he had failed a roadside test which indicated that he had 58 micrograms of alcohol in his system per 100 millilitres of breath, the legal limit being 35. Samples taken from him in hospital indicated his blood alcohol limit at the time of the crash “would have been in the region of twice the legal limit for driving”. Marsh also failed initial tests for cocaine and cannabis, and continued to be over the limit for these drugs six hours after the collision.

He was interviewed by detectives on the evening of July 13 after being discharged from hospital and made no comment under questioning. But he did give a prepared statement in which he said Ms Atherton had forced him to drive to his ex-girlfriend Gemma Bainbridge’s house after they had argued about him lending her money. Marsh alleged his partner had been armed with a hammer at this time and damaged some of the windows at the address.

He also stated she suffered from mental health issues and had been “refusing to take her medication”, and that he “lost control of the car because Michelle was trying to grab the steering wheel prior to the collision”. During his evidence from the witness box, Marsh described Ms Atherton as being “like my best friend” and said they had moved into a house on Gaskell Street in the town together only 10 days before the incident. Wearing a black shirt and grey tie on the stand and sporting short dark hair, the dad-of-three said he had “slept all day” on July 4 “due to his working hours” and awoke at around 6pm – after which he and his girlfriend went to an Asda[8] supermarket, where she was said to have picked up her medication from the pharmacy.

Under questioning from his then defence counsel Michael O’Brien, who subsequently withdrew from the case[9], he said: “She asked me to take her to an address in Haresfinch. When we pulled up, some guy came up to the car. “She passed her medication out and he passed her GBP100 in GBP20 notes.

I didn’t know that’s what we were going for.” Marsh said of their return home: “I wasn’t really speaking to her because of what she’d just done. She basically sat in the kitchen all night.

“Later on in the night she asked could we have a drink, which was rich because it was a Tuesday night and I was starting a new job the morning after. There was a quarter bottle of gin left in the house. “She stayed in the kitchen, I was in the living room watching Netflix.

I started drinking about 10 o’clock.” Marsh told the court that they “walked to the shop just before it shut” and bought two bottles of wine and a 2l bottle of cider. He added: “The only drink I drank in the house that night was the gin.

“She drunk the two bottles of wine and the 2l of cider as well. She remained in the kitchen and I remained in the living room. “I remember watching Bear Grylls.

I don’t remember speaking much, we’d fell out over selling the medication.” Marsh claimed Ms Atherton then began “going on about” Ms Bainbridge while on the phone “to a girl called Zoe”, using his device and his WhatsApp account, in the early hours of July 5. He stated that she was “saying she’s going to go round and do stuff” and “came in a couple of times asking would I take her to Gemma’s.

The defendant said: “I think it was three times through the night. I said no on each occasion. “I stopped drinking about 1am.

Michelle carried on, she still had the cider and stuff. “Michelle pulled a bag of cocaine out of her pocket. She said she got it from someone she knew.

“I had two little small amounts off a key and left the majority of it with Michelle. I smoked a joint about 9pm.” When asked if he had taken any prescription drugs, Marsh said: “No, but I did have diazepam in my system.

I took that three weeks prior to it.” Mr O’Brien asked him “what caused Michelle to be upset”, and he replied: “It was the messages Gemma was sending. Michelle told me Gemma had been messaging and winding her up.

“Gemma was telling Michelle I still loved my ex-wife. At 20 past 6, she came in from the kitchen. “She got a hammer off the electric cupboard and said ‘get me to your ex’s now before I put this hammer through your head’.

I was quite shocked.” Marsh alleged Ms Atherton then went into the bedroom where his 13-year-old daughter was sleeping while holding the hammer. He said: “I just said ‘I’ll take you to Gemma’s now’.

“I just wanted to get her out of the bedroom. My daughter looked quite worried at the time. “Michelle walked downstairs, I followed her.

She went into the kitchen and passed me the car keys. “We went out, Michelle put her jacket on. She must have put the hammer in the jacket, because I didn’t know she had the hammer on her.

“She was wound up. It was weird. She was quite wound up, wound up at me.

It was like a different Michelle to what I’d known. “I was just normal. I know I’d had gin and that, but when I left that house I didn’t feel like I couldn’t drive that car.”

Marsh reported he then began driving them to Ms Bainbridge’s home, but was still “asking Michelle not to go because Gemma has an autistic son”. He added: “I knew he would have got scared. He’d have had a meltdown.

I was asking Michelle not to go. “She said ‘I’m going and getting the money she owes you’. It totalled GBP1,900 that Gemma owed me.

“I didn’t want her to go. I didn’t actually take her to Gemma’s house. “I dropped her off at least five minutes walk from her house.

I said ‘I’m having nothing to do with this’.” Marsh told jurors that he waited for around five to 10 minutes before going to look for Ms Atherton, eventually finding her in an alleyway near to Ms Bainbridge’s home. He said: “I asked her to get in the car.

“When she got in the car, I asked ‘what have you done?’. She said she’d smashed the window. “I was quite upset.

I turned round and said ‘you know I’m going to get blamed for this now, don’t you?’, and she said ‘yeah, so what?’.” After they drove off again, Marsh recalled: “Michelle was screaming at me. She was telling me f*** off.

“She was screaming about my ex-wife, you still love your ex wife. I was trying to calm Michelle down. “Michelle was like ‘put your foot down, we’re being followed’.

She had the hammer out. “She was telling me to put my foot down. I was quite worried, so I put my foot down.

“As we approached the bend, the car was silent. Michelle was silent. “No one was speaking.

I thought I was going about 40mph.” Marsh claimed that, as their Ford Fiesta approached the bend at Delta Road, his rear nearside wheel was clipped by the front bumper of a flatbed truck that was travelling in the opposite direction, in front of the bin lorry. He said: “I just hear a bang at the back of the car.

“I seen it like when it was literally on us, I heard a bang. It was louder than it would be if it was bumper to bumper. “From the sound of it, it was the alloy part of the wheels that had hit.

I thought it was the truck that I’d just seen on us.” Mr O’Brien said that experts had concluded that there was no evidence of such a collision taking place, but Marsh maintained: “There was a collision. It was just a little clip.

“He clipped the wheel, not a lot of force behind it. I heard a bang. “It felt like the car fishtailed to the left, so I steered to the left – a quarter of a turn, if that.

I turned the steering wheel to the left, because the back end of the car was going to fishtail to the left. “Michelle leaned over and grabbed the steering wheel. She grabbed it around the 20 past the hour mark.

“It was her right hand. She pulled the wheel towards her to the 20 to the hour mark, towards herself in a clockwise direction. “It caused the right turn in the car.

I overpowered her and put it back to the left. “We all know what happened next. I could see the bin wagon approaching, so I tried to steer to the left as fast as I could.

“We went into the bin wagon.” Marsh said he then “woke up” behind the wheel, adding: “I didn’t actually know what had happened. It was like I’d lost my memory.

“If you can imagine being in a dark room holding a candle, that’s what my vision was like. My chest was like having a heart attack, because I’ve had one before. “I didn’t know where I was, what I was doing.

The next thing I remember was waking up in hospital.” Marsh said he spent the next 10 days in hospital after suffering a broken left ankle, a broken right wrist, “several” fractured ribs and “massive internal bleeding”. Of his guilty plea to causing death by careless driving while under the influence of drink or drugs, entered on the second day of his trial, he said: “I want to take my side of the responsibility.

“If I wasn’t driving that car, it wouldn’t have happened. Because of the alcohol and drug levels in my blood and the speeding as well, the speed I was travelling at going into the bend.” Asked why he had pleaded not guilty to causing death by dangerous driving, Marsh told the jury: “Because Michelle grabbed the steering wheel.

I actually fixed the steering wheel.” At the conclusion of his evidence in chief, he added: “I’d just like to say how sorry I am to Michelle’s family. There’s not a minute of any day that’s gone by since then where I don’t think about Michelle or how I could have done things differently – watching the videos since then, I’m actually mortified by what I’ve seen.”

His new defence counsel Steven Ball said on his behalf today: “He has to accept that he has caused pain and distress to many members of Michelle Atherton’s family and friends. The other factor mentioned is the defendant’s previous conviction for drink driving in 2006 as a 26-year-old. “He has previous convictions but not extensive or particularly relevant beyond that.

A number of testimonials have been uploaded to the digital case system, in addition to a letter from the defendant’s 10-year-son. “The defendant is a father of three children, and their father’s absence will be felt particularly hard. The defendant has previously been self-employed with a loft conversion business and has consistently traded in that business since 2010.”

Detective Sergeant Kurt Timpson, lead investigating officer from Merseyside Police’s serious collision investigation unit, said following Marsh’s sentencing: “Our thoughts remain very much with the family of Michelle Atherton, who died in this crash. It has been a very difficult period of time for them as their lives have been changed forever by this incident, and they have been supported by a specially trained family liaison officer throughout the case. “I welcome the sentence today, and I would like to thank members of the public who helped at the scene that morning.

I also thank members of the jury, who have carried out their duty based on the evidence they have heard. “Marsh was impaired through drink and drugs that morning and the speed and manner of driving in wet conditions was grossly excessive and inappropriate, and he has been found in open court to be dangerous. His driving was prolonged and was vastly in excess of the speed limit.

“Excess speed and driving while impaired through drink and drugs devastates lives and causes unimaginable harm to people who become involved in road crashes. Not one of us would want to be involved in such incidents, and we must change driving behaviour to reduce that harm. “Marsh has selfishly put Michelle’s family through the added pressure of sitting through a trial and hearing him allege that Michelle was responsible for the crash.

This was simply not true. “Merseyside Police will not tolerate drivers who deliberately ignore the rules of the road and will be relentless in our pursuit of justice. We are committed to the prevention of serious injury and road death to work towards Vision Zero, our strategy focused on driving down the amount of road traffic collisions in our regions and to lower the number of people killed and seriously injured on our streets.

“However, this is something that we must all do in partnership. Communities can also take a stand and help us to make the roads safer. “We know how much you want to help us so that we can ensure roads and shared spaces are used responsibly and that people abide by the laws we enforce.

The sentence issued at Liverpool Crown Court today by Judge Aubrey today shows that the courts will deal robustly with offenders and acts as a stark message to anyone whose selfish and reckless actions end in such tragedy.”

Don’t miss the biggest and breaking stories by signing up to the Echo Daily newsletter here[10]

References

1. ^ Kevin Marsh drank gin and snorted cocaine as he watched a Bear Grylls show on Netflix hours before getting behind the wheel (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)
2. ^ Ms Atherton died aged 47 in the incident. (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)
3. ^ He was employed to care for people, instead he left a 91-year-old woman bruised and scared (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)
4. ^ Liverpool Crown Court (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)
5. ^ St Helens (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)
6. ^ Newton-le-Willows (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)
7. ^ Aintree (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)
8. ^ Asda (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)
9. ^ who subsequently withdrew from the case (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)
10. ^ Don’t miss the biggest and breaking stories by signing up to the Echo Daily newsletter here (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)