THE unanimous acquittal by a jury of the woman driver of a car involved in a crash which killed Sarah Cook (26) has left the dead girl's grieving family shattered with disbelief.
Jacqueline Cook and her husband Roland, of Parks Road, Mitcheldean, remain convinced that the Crown Prosecution Service has failed them in an apparently clear-cut case.
They now feel all the more helpless because they cannot make an appeal.
They told the Review that they felt 'let down' and abandoned by the justice system after losing their only daughter who would have had only a millisecond's warning of an oncoming car on the wrong side of the road.
It was inconceivable that nobody could be to blame for their daughter's death.
Mrs Cook said the acquittal of driver Nicola Beech (32), of Brierley, left them feeling as if they – and their daughter – had been in the wrong.
Mrs Cook said of the court's decision: "As far as she is concerned she has done nothing wrong.
"Yet we are expected to accept my daughter's death – which appeared to be a matter of little importance in this court case – as an 'accident'.
"We have to live with it every second of the rest of our lives. We are the ones who have been sentenced, and yet we have done no wrong. The grief, loss and hurt will never go away."
They said the case and its conclusion had also brought them financial hardship.
They were already £5,000 out of pocket and because of the court's decision their daughter's funeral expenses would not be paid from another party's insurance which would have been the case with a conviction.
So far Sarah's insurance company had not released a penny in spite of the car being written off.
The Cooks said they had paid bills of at least £1,800 to have Sarah's car towed in and stored in a secure place in order to be used in evidence – and even here they had been let down by the police not informing them of the car's release for some time after the examiners had finished with it.
A police spokesman said they could not comment further on the matter following the court's decision.