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HDPA: 6yo killed walking home from school - why it's unfair to blame the parents

Author
Heather du Plessis-Allan ,
Publish Date
Wed, 31 Jul 2019, 5:09PM
Carla Neems was killed by a recycling truck on May 2, 2017. Today, her parents were partially blamed (Photo / File)

HDPA: 6yo killed walking home from school - why it's unfair to blame the parents

Author
Heather du Plessis-Allan ,
Publish Date
Wed, 31 Jul 2019, 5:09PM

Today, I can’t help but feel terribly sad for a Gisborne family.

I feel as if they’re being so unfairly blamed today for the death of their daughter.

Two years ago Carla Neems died on her way home from school. She was six years old, she only lived 450 metres away from the school, and most days she would walk home with her older siblings.

This day, she walked most of the way accompanied, but did the last 100 metres on her own. And that is when she was hit by a truck.

It was a terrible mistake, the truck driver has been cleared, she was just in his blind spot.

But, today a coroner's inquest has partially blamed Carla’s parents for this.

The coroner has made recommendations to the rubbish truck company waste management too, but he’s taken her parents to task for letting her walk home alone.

He says she was too young to be on her own, and even that she was too young to be accompanied by her siblings, who were eight and 10. He says she should have been accompanied by an adult.

What’s more, he says she shouldn’t have been on her scooter without an adult around her. Again, because she was too young.

I think this is desperately unfair on her parents. This was a confluence of several unfortunate things that all happened at the same time. It’s was horribly unlucky. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.

Even the coroner admits the tragedy was a result of all things combining badly. The truck was parked across her driveway. The truck has a blindspot. The truck arrived exactly when Carla did. Carla crossed the road in front of the truck. How can you avoid all of that?

Was she too young to be walking home alone, or riding her scooter?

Her parents don’t think so. The local police officer said he didn’t think so.

Blaming her parents for this, I don’t think it achieves anything, and I certainly don’t think it’s fair.

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