M40 tragedy families in anniversary plea
Families of 12 children killed alongside their teacher in a minibus disaster 20 years ago today launched a new safety campaign, saying they feared youngsters on school trips were still at risk now.
Victims' families were this afternoon marking the heartbreaking anniversary with a special mass at the children's school, Hagley Roman Catholic High.
And they called for action to improve safety for other schoolchildren, with the slogan 'now is the time', saying only luck had prevented a similar crash from happening again.
Remembering tragic victims of M40 crash twenty years on
Despite new laws that all minibuses must be fitted with three-point fastening seat belts, parents of the victims are still haunted by fears that a similar tragedy could happen again.
Steve Fitzgerald, whose 13-year-old daughter Claire died, said: "On the 20th anniversary of the death of our children, we simply ask, what lessons have been learned from the 20 years we have had without our children?
"Not nearly enough. Certainly, nothing is in place to prevent such a crash from happening again."
The party from Hagley RC High was returning from a Schools Proms concert at the Royal Albert Hall just after midnight on November 18 1993, when their minibus hit the back of a motorway maintenance lorry on the hard shoulder of the M40, near Warwick, and burst into flames.
An inquest, which recorded verdicts of accidental death, heard that teacher Eleanor Fry, who was driving, had worked all day before the trip and had probably fallen asleep at the wheel.
Schools and voluntary groups today are able to run minibuses under a 'Permit 19', meaning they are not subject to the safety checks compulsory for commercial operators and volunteer drivers do not have to undertake specialist minibus training.
