How justice system failed Yorkshire gran killed by stolen lorry gang

Jackie Wileman was killed while she was out walking by a gang in a stolen lorry which ploughed into a house after hitting her.

Failures in the justice system surrounding the death of a grandmother killed by a gang in a stolen lorry are being highlighted by her grieving brother. Chris Burn reports.

“As far as I am concerned, our family has been let down all the way through Jackie’s case by the justice system,” says Johnny Wood as the ex-miner prepares to head to Westminister this week to outline what he sees as the litany of failures surrounding the death of his sister Jacqueline Wileman last year at the hands of a gang of criminals.

His family’s nightmare began on an early-autumn day last year shortly after Mrs Wileman, a 58-year-old grandmother, left her home in Grimethorpe, South Yorkshire, to go on her regular daily walk.

“She would do 6.5 miles every day, exactly the same route,” Johnny, who is due to meet Justice Minister Robert Buckland on Wednesday with his wife Jill and local MP Stephanie Peacock, explains. “People used to set their watches by her.”

But on September 14 last year at close to the halfway point of her daily journey in the normally-quiet village of Brierley, Jackie was killed in an incident so shocking and appalling that some locals believed a terrorist attack had just taken place.

At 1.37pm that day, a stolen lorry carrying four men and travelling at almost twice the speed limit careered around a bend in Brierley. The eight-and-a-quarter tonne vehicle, travelling at its maximum possible speed of 55mph in a 30mph with no brakes applied, lost control and smashed into a car coming in the opposite direction before mounting the pavement and hitting Jackie.

She was killed instantly but was dragged further down the road as the lorry w