A three-year-old girl miraculously survived when her suicidal
father ran into the path of a 70mph express train while holding her in
his arms – a day after discovering the girl’s mother was seeing another
man.
Scarlett Straw was found barely alive on the
trackside after her father Richard, 28, tried to kill them both on the
high-speed stretch of the main east coast line on July 11 2011.
Her
cheekbone was fractured, one arm was broken and one leg was smashed by
the blow, which also left her with a huge wound on the back of her head.
And today an inquest heard how Straw ran at the train ‘as if from some
starting blocks’ after he found out his estranged partner Samantha
Roberts had started a
relationship with another man.
And in a
further chilling twist, it emerged he had scrawled abusive graffiti over
the walls of his former family home, including the words, ‘good bye
Sammy, good bye mummy.’
A note found in Mr Straw’s Renault Megane,
which was found parked near the train tracks on the day he died in July
also stated that Scarlett is ‘coming with me, far far away from you.’
While Mr Straw died from multiple injuries, miraculously little Scarlett escaped with broken bones.
Doncaster Coroners Court, South Yorkshire, heard that Mr Straw and Miss Roberts split after five years together.
Miss
Roberts described Straw as a loving dad one day who could be ‘horrible
and nasty’ the next, and said that the relationship with Mr Straw
properly broke down in April last year when they had a big argument
following him losing money gambling.
"I think he was pampered a
lot by his parents, if his uniform wasn’t ready or his pack lunch he
would go mad," said Miss Roberts.
The court also heard that Miss Roberts had been seeing a friend of warehouse operator Mr Straw since they split.
Miss
Roberts told the court that she thinks he found out ‘properly’ about
this on the day before he killed himself. He had followed her that
Sunday and acted aggressively.
On the Monday morning he turned up
unannounced and asked if he could take Scarlett to the park and
McDonalds as he had taken the day off work.
"He said he was
thinking about what happened yesterday and had realised he had lost us
and had taken the day off work and didn’t want to waste it," said Miss
Roberts.
She agreed as long as he brought their daughter back by
midday as she need to get a school uniform. He seemed calmer than the
previous day and he ‘seemed happy’, she added.
"He said to Scarlett to say goodbye to mummy and tell her you love her," said Miss Roberts.
It
was when she returned to the house in Doncaster later that day that she
realised Mr Straw had been back because he had returned the family dog.
Then, when she entered her house she noticed ‘hateful and vitriolic’
writing over the walls, in his handwriting.
They included the words,
‘you always wanted me dead’ and
‘mummy I love you, goodbye’.
It
is unclear exactly what Mr Straw’s movements were after he picked
Scarlett up from her mother’s but around 12.30 p.m. train driver David
Dobson saw a white male run from the undergrowth at the side of the
tracks as he neared a crossing.
Mr Dobson said the man was running
as if ‘he was running from some starting blocks’ and as he saw the
train he seemed to speed up.
In his statement the driver, with 34
years experience, said he could see he was carrying a young girl, adding
‘she was being carried on his left hip, had her arms around his neck
and her head on his shoulder.’
Moments later he heard a bang on
the right side of the train and knew he had him, the train came to an
emergency stop and the emergency services were called.
Another
driver went down the tracks to check and found Mr Straw dead but the
girl miraculously alive. Badly injured she lay a short distance away
from her father.
Scarlett’s cheekbone was fractured,
one arm was broken and one leg was smashed by the blow, which also left
her with a huge wound on the back of her head.
But just months after Scarlett, now four, made a miraculous recovery, following multiple operations and 45 days in hospital.
Mr Straw died from multiple fractures and injuries.
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