‘Our close-knit family has been torn apart’

“TO LOSE a child is a nightmare. We are now existing instead of living. Our once close-knit family has been torn apart. Sadly this is all down to one person, Mr Bloomfield.”

Those were the words of Catherine O’Flynn at an inquest yesterday. She fought back tears as she spoke of losing her 12-year-old nephew, Billy Kelleher, in a crash near Fermoy, Co Cork on February 20, 2005.

The person she was referring to, lorry driver Gerard Bloomfield, sat just a few feet away from both the aunt and the distraught parents of the dead boy, Margaret and Willie Kelleher.