A Family's World Destroyed by a Moment of Impatience
A mother has spoken of her devastation after her seven-year-old daughter was killed in a horrific head-on collision caused by a delivery driver's dangerous overtaking manoeuvre. Elsie Gascoigne's life was tragically cut short on January 3 this year on the B1202 in Lincolnshire, an event her mother said "destroyed our lives and everything we were as a family."
The Tragic Collision and Its Aftermath
Elsie was returning home from a shopping trip with her family when Veselin Dudenski, 39, attempted to overtake another vehicle on a road with a hidden dip. Despite clear road signs and markings warning of the dangerous dip, Dudenski, a sub-contracted delivery driver from Cherry Avenue in Branston, pulled out. The resulting head-on collision left Elsie with a broken neck; she died from her injuries the following day.
Elsie's father, who was driving the family's Kia, desperately tried to swerve to avoid the impact but could not prevent the crash. He was left with a permanent disability to his elbow and now suffers from nightmares and flashbacks. A witness who saw Elsie in the back of the car confronted Dudenski at the scene, telling him, "you killed a kid."
Justice Served and a Life Lost
At court, prosecutor Claire Holmes stated that Dudenski had either paid "insignificant attention" to the road signs or had seen them and chosen to ignore them. The driver of a Ford Ranger, whom Dudenski had overtaken safely just before the fatal incident, described the second overtake as "silly."
Judge Sjolin Knight told Dudenski that his driving showed a "lack of patience" and that his claim of waiting for a few seconds before overtaking could not be true. While she accepted he was unaware of the dip, preventing the sentence from falling into the highest category, she emphasised the tragic consequences of his actions.
Dudenski, who had been a professional driver for 17 years with a clean record, admitted to causing death by dangerous driving. He was sentenced to six years in prison and received a concurrent 22-month sentence for causing serious injury to Mr. Gascoigne. He was also banned from driving for eight years and must pass an extended retest. Despite having permanent settled status in the UK, he now faces automatic deportation.
In a heartbreaking victim impact statement, Elsie's mother remembered her daughter as a child who "loved animals, especially horses" and dreamed of owning a white horse. She added, "We will never recover from this. Our daughter was seven years old, full of love, light and laughter, and she is gone forever."
