Sent card to son's killer!
Monday 24th November 2008
The scene in front of me was like something out of a horror movie. Sprawled at the side of the road was a little boy. A puddle of red was forming round his dark blond hair, his blue-green eyes were open, glazed. One of his legs was clearly broken, and one trainer and a patterned sock had flown off several feet away. But it wasn't a film. The boy was my 10-year-old son, Gordon.
It was 23 March 2004, and just 10 minutes earlier, I'd seen my little boy and his friend, Thomas McGregor, then 12, walk off as happy as Larry. I'd been working at Johnson's
dry cleaners in the Asda superstore just across the road from the two-bedroom house in Kirkcaldy that I shared with Gordon, my husband, Liam, then 32, and our 10-month old son, Dylan. Just after 7pm, Gordon and Thomas had popped in to see me.
'Can we get a McDonald's, Mum?' Gordon had asked.
'I've got just enough money for you to get a burger each,' I'd said.
Minutes later, the pair of them had come back eating their Big Macs.
'We're off home now, Mum,' Gordon had smiled.
It was only a two-minute walk to our house.
'See you later,' I'd replied.
How was I to know they'd be the last words he'd hear me say?
Ten minutes later, Thomas came hurtling into the store.
'Gordon's been hit by a car!' he cried.
As I rushed outside, every fibre inside me was warning me not to go, not to look. But I was Gordon's mother, I had to be with him. And the sight that greeted me will haunt me forever.
My little boy, my baby, was lying there like a rag doll at the side of the road. Crouching down next to him, I pleaded with him.
'Breathe, baby, breathe,' I begged.
But there was no response.
I became hysterical, screaming, as the world went into slow motion. Paramedics arrived and gently tried to prise me off my son.
'Come with me,' a policeman said.
'I'm not leaving him,' I sobbed, clinging to his favourite camouflage coat as the paramedics tried to resuscitate him. Somehow, I managed to pull out my mobile and call my mum, Gwen, 64, who lived a street away. She arrived while the paramedics were still there. I clung to her, unable to look any longer. Please let them save him. Please…But I knew the truth.
The doctor at the Victoria Hospital confirmed it half-an-hour later.
'I'm sorry,' she said. 'There was nothing we could do.'
In that moment, I might as well have died myself. It was late by the time the doctor ushered us to the room where Gordon's body lay. His blue-green eyes now closed, a bandage covered the top of his head.
'Goodbye,' I whispered, as I cuddled him.
The newspapers reported Gordon's death in a simple manner. Boy, 10, dies announced the headline in The Times. But for me, it wasn't simple. How had this happened? The next day, I found out.
'The driver of the car was speeding,' our police liaison officer said. 'We're charging him with causing death by dangerous driving.'
'How fast was he going?' I asked.
'He was doing 86mph in a 40mph zone,' the officer explained.
I was so angry, I could have grabbed a knife right then and killed the man who had done this to my child. Instead, I sat with my head in my hands, as Liam tried to comfort me.
I was a mess. Too shocked to even arrange Gordon's funeral. My sister, Carol Forbes-Smith, 43, organised the ceremony two weeks later, at Dysart Cemetery. Back at home, I hardly knew what to do with myself. I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep. Liam, a plant operator, ended up looking after Dylan and our home. But I needed to keep busy, so a few weeks later, I went back to work. It meant I had to see the spot where my boy died every day, but strangely, I found it comforting. Not that anything stopped the pain of losing him.
Two months on, in May 2004, with Gordon's 11th birthday coming up, I wanted the man responsible for his death to suffer, too.
So one day, before work, I went to the shops and bought a birthday card. That night, when I couldn't sleep, I tore open the cellophane wrapping.
Hello, I am Gordon, I wrote. This is my birthday. I would have been 11. I hope this makes you drive more carefully.
I put in a picture of Gordon inside. I'd lived in Kirkcaldy all my life, so I knew exactly where the driver who killed Gordon lived. I sent the card to him. I wanted him to think about Gordon, about the devastation he'd caused our family. Mum wasn't too pleased when
I told her what I'd done.
'That wasn't a good idea, love, was it?' she said.
'I think I'll decide what's a good idea and what isn't,' I snapped.
Poor Mum, she was only trying to help. She'd lost a grandson, too.
I just felt no one understood what I was going through. A couple of months later, I saw
a friend in town and we started talking about what had happened.
'You're still young enough, you can have more children,' she said.
I could have slapped her. Another child was the last thing on my mind. Gordon's memory consumed me, and one night soon after, while everyone was asleep, I got a razor blade from the bathroom and slashed it across my wrists. As blood sprayed across the sink, the pain actually helped to blot out the grief I was feeling. Such a sweet sense of relief. My wrists were still bandaged when I went to the High Court in Glasgow in January 2005, for the trial of 23-year-old Ryan McAndrew, the man accused of killing Gordon.
I listened in horror as the prosecution outlined how Thomas and Gordon had gone to cross the road. That Thomas had gone first, seen the car, and shouted to Gordon to stay where he was. But Gordon ran towards him. Thomas then saw the car skid, smelled smoke from the tyres, saw Gordon thrown into the air…McAndrew admitted causing death by dangerous driving. He'd never replied to the card I'd sent him. Never apologised. He never even looked at me. What kind of person is he? I was appalled when the judge, Lord Abernethy, jailed him for just five years.
'Did Gordon's life mean so little?' I sobbed to Mum.
'I hope he gets a hard time in prison,' she raged.
Again, it made the papers. Five years for the driver who killed boy, 10, at 86mph, read the headlines. As far as the law was concerned, that was that. I stopped self-harming. I owed it to my surviving son to try to stay well. But I still had to live with the memories. Five months later, Liam turned to me in bed one night.
'Maybe we should think about having a baby?' he suggested softly. 'But only when you want to.'
Something inside me clicked. Maybe another baby wasn't such a bad idea after all. It would give me something to focus on, and someone for little Dylan to play with now he'd lost his brother.
'OK,' I whispered. 'Let's try.'
I couldn't believe it when just a month later, I was pregnant. And I was pretty terrified, too.
I couldn't bear the thought of something going wrong. And I wasn't the only one worried.
'Are you going to love the new baby more than me?' Dylan asked.
I couldn't stop the tears. Gordon had said the same thing when I'd been pregnant with Dylan.
'Of course not,' I told him. 'I'll love you both the same.'
By a weird coincidence, my due date was 23 March 2006, the second anniversary of Gordon's death.
If the girl I was expecting was born then, it'd be too much to bear. But, thank goodness, she wasn't, so I took my bump to visit Gordon's grave.
Little Rowan finally arrived just over a week later, at Forth Park Maternity Hospital in Kirkcaldy. My little miracle weighed 7lb 6oz.
Two years on, she's got the same blue-green eyes as her brother, and I'm so proud of her.
As for Dylan, we've explained what happened to his brother, and sometimes, if I have a down moment, he'll talk to me about it.
'You're sad because of Gordon, aren't you Mummy?' he'll say. 'It was a bad man that ran him over.'
But it's vital Dylan and Rowan know what happened to their brother, and I hope my story will make others think about road safety, too. I don't regret sending Gordon's killer that birthday card. Did he keep it? Or throw it away as casually as he took my son's life? Only he knows, and he must live with that forever.
Road Safety Week runs from 10-16 November. For more information, visit www.brake.org.uk