Three air cadets including Wayne Maynard from Barnet lost their lives in a fatal coach crash last year. On Monday Jeannette Morris was convicted of causing their deaths. MATTHEW NIXSON examines the events leading to the tragedy

The fatal chain of events which was to cost three young lives and shatter many others began shortly before 9.25pm on August 21 last year. More than 15 months later its terrible consequences are still being felt.

Coach driver Jeannette Morris was ferrying 36 weary north London air cadets and four adults back to RAF Wittering, Cambridgeshire, after a day's orienteering.

As her coach travelled along the busy A1 dual carriageway, a stretch of road she knew well, it was involved in a minor scrape with a Spanish lorry pulling out of Shell's Thornhaugh services.

As an experienced driver, Morris, 48, from Stamford, Lincolnshire, should have known about the lay-by up ahead.

Instead, with cars whizzing by at speed, she stopped in the inside lane of the dark road, switched on her hazard lights and left the coach to talk to the Spanish driver, later cleared of any wrongdoing. Events began moving very quickly.

At the same time another lorry driver Simon Bland, was easing into gear and switching on the cruise control ahead of a night's deliveries for Rathbones, a bakery company.

The father-of-one would later tell Peterborough Crown Court he was driving carelessly when just minutes later he ploughed into the stationary RAF coach.

Later one of the dead cadet's mothers said: "If it hadn't been Bland's lorry, it would've been someone else's. This was an accident waiting to happen."

Bland came upon the coach as he was manoeuvring around the Spanish lorry, still parked on the slip road from Thornhaugh services and sticking out slightly into the main carriageway. Whatever happened that night and events were picked over in minute detail during the ten-day trial Bland was distracted.

Experts later estimated his speed at 53mph. Bland, 37, from Peterborough, told the court it was too late to brake by the time he saw the coach. Instead, he swerved and the cab and then trailer of his 38-ton lorry clipped the back of the coach.

The effects of the double collision were catastrophic. Morris, later described as "slightly hysterical" at the time, had been trying to evacuate the coach. The mother-of-two told police in an interview that cadets, who had been on summer camp when the tragedy occurred, were "sitting ducks". No-one disagreed.

There were two huge bangs, then silence, then screams. The impact saw crates of bread thrown across the road as Bland's lorry veered into the central reservation, straightened out, then carried on to a lay-by where he pulled over. Back at the coach, the extent of the tragedy was unfolding.

Wayne Maynard, 18, of Brent Place, Barnet, and 15-year-olds Jason Adnitt, of Edmonton, and Chris Colmer, of Pinner, were fatally injured. James Topping, 15, of Meadway, Barnet, Wayne's friend at 1374 (East Barnet) Squadron Air Training Corps, suffered terrible head injuries. He was later to pull through but spent months recovering in hospital. Eighteen other cadets, including James McGrath, 14, from Tottenham, were injured.

James McGrath had swapped places with Jason Adnitt shortly before the crash. Outside court his mother Julie wept as she told how her son, who suffered severe spinal injuries, was consumed by guilt. In the wake of the crash he quit his beloved cadets and his school and is now living outside London with his grandparents.

"He is not the same person by any standards," she said, clutching the hand of her partner William Henderson. "He is still hung up on the fact that he swapped seats with Jason. It's very difficult for him to move on."

Chris Colmer's parents, Clifford and Nicky, summed up the feelings of the families: "Whatever the result of this trial it will not bring Chris back to us."

Susan Maynard, 48, Wayne's mother, sat through the trial with partner Steve Payne. Her son, a trainee mechanic, had been helping cadets off the coach when Bland's lorry claimed his life. It later emerged that just weeks earlier Wayne had survived another crash in Barnet, wrestling control of a runaway car from its driver who had suffered a fit and saving the life of a toddler in its path.

"The jury made the right decision. I think it's a brilliant result but it will never bring my boy back home," said Mrs Maynard outside court. "It has been a very hard two weeks: there have been times when I have just had to walk out. They have taken my boy's whole career and dreams away and that's what hurts they were just torn from him."

She praised Bland's remorse but was less kind about Morris.

"She should have got those kids off that coach and she should've parked somewhere safe," said Mrs Maynard. "As an experienced driver she just should have known better. Morris never once admitted responsibility."

Mr Payne, 43, said: "There was another party in this which has been brought up a couple of times in court that's the Shell service station and something has got to be done about that.

"Too many accidents have happened there from what we heard in court and it was just a matter of time before there was a fatality."

November 28, 2001 19:45