A mother whose daughter died on her way to Creamfields 17 years ago has spoken of her gratitude for the final memories they shared. Dominique Williams, a dance and performing arts student at Edge Hill University, was travelling to the festival in Daresbury when the car she was in crashed on Higher Road in Halewood on August 29, 2009.
Speaking to the ECHO, Dominique's mum Lesley said: "The anniversary of Dom's death this year is actually on the Saturday. It's a tough week, I can't lie. I always go deep into myself and into my memories. I can tell you what she was doing every day of the week before her death. This week the memories have come even more easily."
Final days together
Lesley said in the days before her daughter's death they saw a lot of each other, memories she now holds onto dearly. "She was such a busy girl and her life was so full," she said. "She was planning to move out for her last year of university to live in Ormskirk.
"She was working in a little boutique in Maghull on Thursday and messaged me to say she didn't have anything for her new house so I picked her up and we went to Aintree retail park. It was like an episode of Supermarket Sweep. I said 'get whatever you want, chick'.
"We then went for tea in a little pub and just had a heart to heart. We always spoke but this was deeper than usual. She went to Creamfields two days later. I'm so grateful that I got to have that talk in the pub. Some people don't get to say goodbye. I didn't know that would be my final goodbye at the time, but it means so much to me."
The crash and its aftermath
Dominique had dreams of opening her own dance school and making it accessible to everyone. The student was travelling to Cheshire with three friends, including Newcastle teenager Nicola Edgar, 19. Lesley said on the day of the festival Dominique was up until 3am calling her friends and planning where to meet before waking at 7am for an early breakfast.
Lesley said she offered to take the girls in her larger car, but Dominique laughed and told her: "Les, I love you millions, but you are not coming." Those were the last words Dominique said to her mum before her death.
Not long after the car left Maghull, it was involved in a crash. According to reports from an inquest into their deaths, a puncture on a rear tyre caused the car to spin out of control and flip onto its roof, killing Dominique and Nicola instantly. The two other occupants, Rebecca Crowley and Sophie Vicary, survived.
Lesley was told about the crash when two police officers knocked on her front door and said there had been a fatal accident. Speaking previously to the ECHO, she described the news as "like a volcano goes off in your life, and there's all the aftershocks and little eruptions afterwards".
Remembering Dominique
The loss of Dominique had a long-lasting impact on her whole family, including her younger brothers Liam and Danny. The brothers, both in their 30s, have had "beautiful" daughters of their own, which has provided comfort for Lesley in recent years.
Lesley told the ECHO that she recently had a new tattoo on her hand which included a moon, because Dominique always told her she "loved her to the moon", and an emblem that represents "a million" because of her daughter's final words to her.
She said: "Dom has turned me into a tattoo freak. She always said she wanted a tattoo but she was terrified of needles. She didn't have her ears pierced until she was 15. I had never had a tattoo before, but a couple of weeks after Dom's death I said I wanted a tattoo for me. About 26 of us got one. There were so many people touched by her."
Merseyside has experienced a number of serious crashes in recent months, including one in Huyton that cost the lives of four young men. For Lesley, the pain of knowing what the victims' families are going through takes her back to losing Dominique.
She told the ECHO: "[The Huyton crash] ripped out my heart and brought it home to me. Every crash I hear about affects me. My friends always ask if I'm alright because they know what it does to me."
In Dominique's 20 years, she made an impression on everyone she met. Lesley told the ECHO that people who knew Dominique continue to come up to her and share memories of the beautiful and bubbly woman who had a lasting impact on her loved ones and beyond.
Despite Dominique's death, her mum has never wanted what happened to put people off going to festivals and having fun. "Festivals are there to be enjoyed," she said. "Dom would still be going if she was here. She would be enjoying life to the fullest."
On Saturday, 17 years after her daughter's death, Lesley will go to the grave in Sefton village before raising a glass in memory in the pub. She said: "People can come and go and join us for a drink and share stories. There is always a story to remember our Dom."
