Young mum killed by car while walking home from night out
A young mum was killed in a tragic road accident as she was walking home from a night out. Anna Llewelyn Roberts, 27, was hit by a Ford Focus on the A499 near Pwllheli.
An inquest heard how the beloved mum was already lying on the dark road when she was fatally struck. She had been wearing dark clothes and sandals with chunky soles and may have been walking on an adjourning path but it was not possible to say why she was lying down before the accident at 2.16am on August 20, 2022.
A Caernarfon inquest heard motorist David Wyn Jones had been travelling at 53mph and could have had less than two seconds to react to the prone woman on the A499 Caernarfon Road near Y Ffor and take action. She died from multiple injuries.
Kate Robertson, senior coroner for north west Wales, said Ms Roberts’ unexplained presence in lying in the road had been “unexpected and unlikely”. She concluded the death had been due to a road traffic accident.
The inquest heard young mum Ms Roberts, an accounts administrator for Rondo Media, had been on a night out with friends at Venu in Pwllheli on August 19 that year. She had had several drinks there – and was later found to be over twice the equivalent of the drink drive limit – and left at 1.35am.
She was seen swaying a couple of times but still walking “with purpose” home towards Y Ffor, the inquest heard. Mr Jones had been visiting his son in Lancashire and was returning home to Llanbedrog. He told the coroner today: “I noticed what looked like a shadow or something dark.”
“I didn’t know if it was a different shade of Tarmac but I realised there was something there. As soon as I braked I swerved to the left to try to avoid her but it was unavoidable. It was obviously too late.”
Mr Jones’ partner woke up in the car. He told her: “I think I’ve hit something. I think it’s a person.”
Mr Jones pulled up. “It was that dark I had to have a torch on my phone on to see where she (Ms Roberts) was,” he told the inquest.
Ian Thompson, a North Wales Police forensic collision investigator, told the hearing CCTV showed Ms Roberts had left the Venu and set off “with purpose” through Pwllheli town centre and towards Y Ffor.
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She was wearing a dark green blouse, black vest top, black leggings and sandals with chunky soles. He said there was a verge but no pavement and a path which would “not (have been) easy to walk along”.
He concluded Ms Roberts was lying in the road “more parallel to the central white lines than perpendicular to them.”
But under questioning from Mr Jones’ barrister Tim Pole, Mr Thompson agreed her exact prone position before the collision was unknown.
Mr Pole said: “Given the darkness at the scene, it would have been difficult if not impossible for Mr Jones to see Ms Roberts to avoid the collision?” “Yes”, replied Mr Thompson.
At the scene near a right hand bend he found trees made a “natural tunnel” blocking out what little moonlight there was and forming a “dark corridor”, he said. He found the Ford Focus’s infotainment system showed Mr Jones had been travelling at 53mph on the 40mph limit road.
This would have given Mr Jones 1.9 seconds to react. It would have been “very difficult” for Mr Jones to appreciate someone lying in the road.
Dr Brian Rodgers, a Home Office pathologist, found Ms Roberts had a 193 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood, which is more than twice the 80 milligrams limit if she had been a driver. He said she had brain injuries and gave the medical cause of death as multiple injuries.
Concluding it was a death due to a road traffic accident, senior coroner Ms Robertson said Mr Jones had been travelling at 53mph for the last ten seconds before the collision.
She said it would not have been easy to identify someone lying in the road “given her unexpected and unlikely position”, her dark clothing and the “tunnel effect” of the trees on any moonlight.
She passed her condolences to Ms Roberts family, adding: “It seems to me she was a bright and lovely young lady with her life ahead of her. Clearly her family meant everything to her.”
After her tragic death the family of Ms Roberts, of Madoc Street, Y Ffor, paid tribute to her. In a statement, they said: “Anna was a special partner, mum, daughter, sister, grand-daughter and friend.”
“She was so proud of her young daughter Erin and she was her world. Her loving boyfriend Iwan, her family and her colleagues at Rondo Media were all that mattered to her.”
“There are no words, no emotions that convey our loss. Our lives will never be the same without Anna.”