The mother of one of the four teenagers whose bodies were found inside an overturned and partly submerged car in north Wales after they had gone on a camping trip says she feels she is living a nightmare.
Police are investigating how the car carrying Jevon Hirst, Harvey Owen, Wilf Fitchett and Hugo Morris, all college students aged between 16 and 18, ended up in a river in Snowdonia (Eryri).
Posting on Facebook on Wednesday morning, Crystal Owen, Harvey’s mother, said: “I feel like I’m in a nightmare I wish I could wake up from but I’m not. I just wanted to say I do appreciate people’s kindness but no amount of messages is going to help me overcome this. Nothing will make this nightmare go away.”
Earlier, in a tribute posted on Instagram, Wilf’s girlfriend, Maddi, said: “I’m going to miss you for ever. The sweetest and most loving boy I’ve ever known. Thank you for loving me endlessly, I promise I’ll do the same for you. I can’t imagine my world without you.”
Her mother, Lisa Corfield, said: “Wilf was such a lovely kind lad and treated Maddi in a way only a mother could hope her daughter be treated. Maddi is heartbroken and we will all miss you dearly Wilf.”
In the teenagers’ home town of Shrewsbury, the Rev Charlotte Gompertz, the vicar of Oxon parish church, described it as “the worst news”. She said: “It’s not what we prayed for when we heard they were missing. It’s impacting everyone. This is a tight-knit community where many of the young people have been to school together since they were four years old. It’s utterly devastating.”
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Gompertz said it was the sort of place where “everybody knows everybody”. “Some of the families are quite high-profile folk within the community and it’s going to take a long time to get our heads even vaguely around this tragedy.”
She said it would be “devastating” for Shrewsbury Colleges Group, where the four were A-level students, adding: “I know they are putting things in place.” She said her church had opened for people to come together. “For the community who are lost, we are here and last night people came in and lit candles.”
A ceremony to switch on the Christmas lights in Shrewsbury has been cancelled.
About 30 local people gathered in the drizzle on Wednesday at a war memorial in Garreg, close to the spot where the boys died, for prayers.
The Rev Roland Barnes said: “We pray for the four youngsters tragically killed, taken from their loved ones in the prime of life. We know the slenderness of the thread that separates life from death and the suddenness with which that thread can be broken.” He asked for prayers for the families: “Lord be with them, cry with them, hold them close.”
Speaking afterwards, he said the prayers had been arranged to show that the community cared about the boys. “It’s so shocking. These were four young people full of life and a sense of adventure who came on a trip to Wales,” said Barnes. “We want to encourage young people to do that, but it has ended so tragically. The weather can be awful. The roads are so windy and narrow, but that’s all part of the adventure.”
People left flowers and messages at the memorial. One woman, who had travelled from Harlech, where one of the boys is believed to have family, left a lantern she had bought for Christmas and four red roses, one for each of the boys. “I want the family to know we’re thinking about them,” she said.
Her card read: “Four inspiring lives have come to an end. The people of Harlech share your grief. Please find strength from this and all the love from Wales. We too are distraught. May their beautiful souls RIP.”
A second read: “May their spirits soar joyfully in the winds of freedom floating amongst the Moelwyns [mountain range] and Cnicht [a nearby peak].”
Penny Crook, who attended the prayers, said: “Children must have driven past it [the crash site] in the bus on the way to school. It brings home to young people the reality of how fragile life is.”
Majorie Sidebotham said: “I cried last night. That could have been my grandchildren.”
Prayers at Garreg pic.twitter.com/m7Iusiu7J7
— steven morris (@stevenmorris20) November 22, 2023
The boys travelled to north Wales at the weekend where they had apparently planned to camp overnight. They were last seen on Sunday morning in a silver Ford Fiesta, and their families raised the alarm when the group failed to return home to Shrewsbury on Monday.
After a tipoff from a member of the public, police found a car overturned and partially submerged in water on Tuesday morning, about five miles from where they were last seen in Porthmadog two days earlier.
June Jones, a councillor who represents the area where the teenagers were found, said people were upset that they had not spotted the car earlier. He added: “But there was nothing to show it left the road there.”
• This article was amended on 22 November 2023 to correct the surname of Wilf Fitchett, who was initially named by the police as Wilf Henderson.
