"I would have done anything to stop that from happening"

Tuesday 13 June 2017

Jersey's Royal Court has heard the transcripts of police interviews conducted with a 39-year-old woman accused of causing the death of three-year-old Clinton Pringle, in which she couldn't explain why she didn't see him cross the road in front of her van.

Rebekah Le Gal is pleading not guilty to causing death by dangerous driving, and is being defended by Advocate Matthew Jowitt.

This morning HM Solicitor General Mark Temple read the transcripts of Mrs. Le Gal's interviews with the police.

During the first one, carried out in the evening following the accident, she explained that she had been at the Freedom Centre to do some work. She then had to go back home as her son had forgotten his keys. On her way back to the Freedom Centre, she turned right on to Tunnel Street, from St Saviour's Road. 

She said she was aware of people in the park but that there was no one on the pavement. She explained she slowed down at the bend, so as to be able to manoeuvre her van.

In her second interview, conducted on 13 September, she was asked why she had used Tunnel Street as a through road although it's 'access to premises only.' Mrs Le Gal explained that she intended to stop at a paint shop to drop off a pot of varnish for a friend. She realised at the top of the road that she didn't have the pot with her but decided to go ahead anyway. 

Mrs. Le Gal was also asked why she hadn't mentioned she had been using her phone whilst driving during the first interview. She replied: "It was a late interview, it had been a long day. I don't know why I didn't bring it up. I know it had no bearing on what happened at the time of the incident. I am not going to make any excuses, I know it was wrong to text but it was a measured kind of act as it was a long stretch of road."

She explained that as she had left the house, she had told her son to call his grandmother. Knowing that he wouldn't have the number, she then typed the number while still in her driveway at home and thought she had pressed send. She realised that she hadn't sent the message when her son texted her saying he didn't have the number. As the number was still in the typing box, she only had to press "send" while driving. 

The police officers produced data that had been extracted from her phone which showed that there was was one minute and 13 seconds between the time the text was sent to her son, and the first call was made to the ambulance. They suggested that she did not see Clinton cross the road because she was texting, but she said that had been further up the road, just before the speed bump. She replied: "I can't explain that. I know where I was on the road. If I was in any way responsible, I couldn't sit and talk as I am now."

As her phone was recovered in her vehicle, wrapped in a jumper, Mrs. Le Gal was asked whether she had tried to conceal it from the police. She said that she didn't have any pockets on her jeans that day and that she was worried that teenagers that were hanging around the scene of the accident would steal her phone. She initially thought about dropping it between the front seats but then saw her husband's jumper there and wrapped the phone in it. 

During the interview, Mrs. Le Gal was asked on several occasions why she hadn't seen anyone on the pavement on either side of her. CCTV from Britannia Place shows a man walking with a bicycle on the left side, another man on the right side of the road and then Clinton's cousin, and Clinton, running across the road. Mrs. Le Gal couldn't offer any explanation. She said: 

"I don't know. All I can say is what I remember. It's painful for me not to have seen him because I would have done anything, anything to stop that from happening."

Prosecutions will resume this afternoon with further witness statements.