The parent of a twelve year old girl from Kennington, South London has told the story of how her daughter was nearly killed by a hit and run driver, but no action was taken by the police.
Farhia Mohammed, a mother from South London, has for the first time publicly shared the harrowing story of her 12 year old daughter’s hit and run in January last year. Aaishah, now 14, was walking home her younger sister, then aged 8, from school and turned around to go to football practice on Black Prince Road in Kennington.
“We live on the Ethelred estate so cars shouldn’t be driving that fast outside our home. A grey car came speeding around the corner and drove right into her. She was thrown to the ground sideways and hit her face on the bonnet as she fell. She was bleeding from the mouth with broken teeth but the driver just drove off. To this day she has been traumatised, as we all are, and still has a loss of sensation in her knee nearly two years later.
“There was blood everywhere. She looked so scared. The surgery was traumatic and my daughter was off school for several weeks, falling behind in class. She had to have emergency dental surgery and now has a prosthetic tooth. She had 24 stitches in her gum and 22 in her chin. We have to do something to make our roads safer for our children. It made me so scared to let my daughters out again.”
“The police didn’t come on the night the incident happened. They only came after a couple of days but there was no further action against the driver. She claimed the child was fine but she lost her front teeth and a tooth went inside her gum. I was left so angry about how little was done to punish the woman who did this and to prevent this from happening again.
She is retelling the event for the first time as new research shows thousands of children were injured on the roads of London – many as they walk to and from school. Parents have been holding vigils calling for safer streets across the capital, with protests in Lambeth, Lewisham, and Twickenham in recent days and further planned in Camden and Hackney.
