Witnesses spotted driver
jumping red traffic lights
and speeding through city
POLICE were carrying out tests on a car wreck yesterday after a driver
and two teenage female passengers died in a crash.
Reports suggested the car may have been travelling at speeds up to
70mph before it hit a tree in a built-up area.
At the time of the crash, police had just started trying to trace the
Fiesta after reports that it had been seen being driven dangerously.
Less than 20 minutes earlier, a member of the public complained that
the car had jumped a red light in the city.
It was also reported to have clipped the wing mirror of a car it was
overtaking on a stretch of dual carriageway.
A lookout for the Fiesta was circulated to police patrols, but it
crashed before it was spotted.
Driver Phillip Matthew, 23, of King's Court, Tillydrone, Aberdeen, who
was showing off the car he had got earlier that day, was killed. His
girlfriend, Lindsay Thomson, 19, and her friend, Lorna Carmichael, 18,
also died in their seats.
Yesterday, Miss Carmichael's father told how his daughter had been
picked up by her two friends to go for a drive.
''It looks like they were all out for a spin together,'' said Mr Don
Carmichael. ''The last time we saw Lorna was at 8.30am when she left for
work.
''Then the police came round in the early hours to tell us what had
happened. ''We asked to be taken to the scene.'' The Fiesta was just
wrapped round the tree.
Miss Carmichael lived with her parents and her two sisters, Yvonne,
25, and Lynn, 22, at Pittengullies Circle, Peterculter, near Aberdeen.
Mr Carmichael said: ''We had just come back from a holiday in Malta
together.
''Lorna was a lively, vivacious girl who loved life and lived it to
the full. She was always outrageously dressed, like a gipsy.''
He added: ''What has happened is painful and so unfortunate, but you
cannot mollycoddle your kids. The one thing this will teach me to do is
to drive slowly, that is certain.''
The family of Lindsay Thomson, of Gaitside Drive, Aberdeen, whose
father died of cancer a year ago, were too upset to talk yesterday.
The parents of Philip Matthew were told of the tragedy while they were
on holiday in Tenerife. Arrangements were made for them to fly back
immediately.
The accident happened on Mid Stocket Road, a long straight downhill
road running from the ring road into the city centre.
A single posy of flowers yesterday marked the spot of the tragedy.
Mr Carmichael said later that he and his wife had agreed to give their
daughter's eyes for transplant.
''It was too late for the hospital to use her other organs,''
explained Mr Carmichael.
''Although she did not have a donor card, we know it is what Lorna
would have wanted.''
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