VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENTS:THE IMAGES were stark, the pain and grief apparent, as the mothers and partners of car crash victims Brendan Donnelly and Lee Salkeld told of how their lives had been torn asunder by the deaths of their loved ones at the hands of drink-driver Anthony Long.
Christine Donnelly’s voice was strong as she read from her victim impact statement of how she was filled “with disbelief and numbness” when she received a phone call telling her that her son had been killed, and how her life had been so irrevocably changed.
“When I sit by Brendan’s resting place, I ring his old phone number, knowing it will never be answered, just to listen to his voice tell me to leave a message that will never be replied to,” said Ms Donnelly, who had earlier told of how she carries a lock of her son’s hair in a locket.
Laura Connolly spoke of how Brendan was more than just her boyfriend but was also her best friend and the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.
Her memories of holding his dead body in the car had been devastating.
“Brendan was my every breath; without him, I feel like there is no air any more, I can’t breathe. I feel cheated and robbed of the life we had planned together . . . Brendan was literally the other half of me, I can never be whole again, not without him,” she said.
Mr Salkeld’s mother Sandra Purcell told how she had raised Lee as a single mother and, as a result, had watched him grow with pride into manhood and fatherhood. She said his death had nearly destroyed her and caused her to attempt suicide.
“No parent should have to go through the death, of losing their only child and the one person that was so precious to death . . . I feel so cheated of future memories of Lee and his daughter, Sasha Leigh, as father and daughter,” she said.
Sasha Leigh’s mother Kate Flynn said Long had “torn my future down around me” and what hurt her most, aside from the mental scars and the physical injuries, was the fact that he left them all at the side of the road for dead and “walked away like he had just hit a dog”.
She told how Lee had asked her to marry him at a U2 concert the year before when the band performed With or Without You.
“Standing over his coffin, I placed a ring on Lee’s finger and kissed him and held his hand. It was the closest to marrying him that I would ever get.”
