A woman has been jailed for four years for causing the death of an eight-month-old baby girl in a crash outside a hospital after losing control of her car while reaching for a handbag.
Bridget Curtis, 71, collided with a pram carrying Mabli Cariad Hall as she was being pushed by her father, Rob Hall, outside Withybush hospital in Haverfordwest, south-west Wales.
Mabli had been at the hospital with her father and mother, Gwen Hall, to say goodbye to her grandmother, who was receiving end-of-life care.
Curtis lost control of her BMW while trying to retrieve her daughter’s handbag from the back seat. Her foot pressed down on the accelerator and her car launched forward into a crowd of people, including the baby.
The court heard she drove at almost 30mph and came to a stop only after hitting a tree. Curtis, from Kilgetty, Pembrokeshire, the director of a farming business, admitted causing Mabli’s death by dangerous driving.
Mabli was taken into the A&E department at Withybush before being flown to hospital in Cardiff and then on to Bristol for specialist care, but died four days later.
In a victim personal statement, Rob Hall said he had been forced to choose between being with his mother and his daughter in their final hours.
He told Swansea crown court: “The violent revving, the screeching tyres and vision of Bridget Curtis’s car being airborne as it launched over the kerb is something I see and hear daily.”
Gwen Hall said: “She was so bright, so beautiful and so full of love and life. She was the apple of all our eyes. The happiest, most loving soul. She was my best friend, my shadow, my second skin, and all she ever gave and all she ever had was love.”
Mabli was the youngest of six siblings, who visited her in hospital in the days before her death.
Curtis was at the hospital with her daughter for an outpatient appointment, and had stopped the BMW directly outside the building.
