‘Hero’ mum pushed daughter’s pram to safety before crane killed her

A mum “died a hero” after pushing her daughter’s pram to safety before a crane on a passing lorry struck and killed her, a court heard. Lorry driver Kevin Miller has been jailed for 13 months for causing the death by careless driving of Rebecca Ableman, who was struck on the head by part of his vehicle’s loader crane.

Pedestrian Rebecca Ableman, 30, had been out shopping at a local farm shop before she was struck on the head from behind by the grab of Kevin Miller’s lorry in Willingham, Cambridgeshire in 2022.

William Carter, prosecuting, told Peterborough Crown Court that the boom on 71-year-old Miller’s loader crane “slew” to the nearside as he drove through the village. He said that the grab struck Ms Ableman “in the head from behind”.

“She suffered catastrophic head and brain injuries from which she died on October 16 2022,” he said.

He continued: “The prosecution case is that it was his failure adequately to secure the boom of his loader crane that amounted to carelessness in this case.” Miller pleaded guilty to causing death by careless driving at an earlier hearing.

Mr Carter said that on the day of the incident, September 22 2022, Miller had set out from his depot in King’s Lynn at around 3.40am and travelled to a Network Rail yard in Leigh on Sea in Essex.

He collected “about 18 tonnes of scrap metal in the form of disused railway track”, the prosecutor said, and travelled through Willingham on his journey back. Mr Carter said the speed limit of the B1050 where the incident happened was 30mph, and Miller’s tachograph indicated he had been travelling at about that speed.

“Mr Miller drove on apparently completely unaware that anything untoward had happened,” said Mr Carter.

He said Miller stopped at the roadside further on and used the crane controls to move the crane back to the middle of the lorry mechanically. He told police in a later interview he had “become aware as he had seen it in his mirrors that the grab had moved over to the side of his trailer”.

He had continued back to King’s Lynn, stopping in the town of March on the way to unload scrap metal. Police identified the lorry involved in the collision and got to the yard in King’s Lynn at just before 2pm.

Miller, of Gayton Road, King’s Lynn, Norfolk, told officers “what’s happened mate? I ain’t hit no-one mate”, Mr Carter said. The prosecutor said: “He had not taken what the Crown submit was an elementary precaution of strapping the crane boom down separately.” He said that “all that was required was further strapping which can very easily be thrown over the boom and then tightened”.

Judge Matthew Lowe, sentencing, said: “To have secured the crane unit would have been the work of moments.

“This tragedy could have so easily been avoided but it wasn’t through the failure of this defendant to take the most basic and elementary of steps.” He said Miller “assumed the crane hydraulics would be sufficient to prevent movement as it pinched the load”.

The judge said the defendant “assumed the load itself wouldn’t shift in transit” but the grabber unit moved to protrude over the nearside edge of the trailer. “This first happened a relatively short distance and time before the grabber collided with Rebecca,” he said.

He said Ms Ableman was on the pavement pushing her daughter in a pram. “There’s no suggestion Mr Miller knew of the collision until significantly later,” he said. “He did become aware shortly later that the grabber had moved.

“He pulled over to use the controls for the grabber unit to put it back in place.” He sentenced Miller to 13 months in prison, of which he will serve no more than half before he is released. The judge banned Miller from driving for two years, with an extension of six and a half months to cover the time he is in prison.

Miller looked straight ahead and appeared to take a deep breath as his sentence was read out. Russell Ableman described his daughter Rebecca as a “fantastic mother” to her young daughter in a victim impact statement read to the court by the prosecutor. He said that her final act was to protect her daughter, adding that she “saved” her and “died a hero”.

Mr Ableman described his daughter as a “dedicated NHS healthcare assistant who would go the extra mile to help others”. He said that she “made everyone around her feel seen and loved”.