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Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Daily Mail
Parents of boy, 10, killed in school Minehead coach crash thank community for 'overwhelming' support as they speak for first time since their son's death
The parents of a 10-year-old boy who died when a bus carrying school kids overturned have thanked their community for its 'overwhelming' support. Oliver Price was tragically pronounced dead at the scene after the 70-seater coach transporting pupils and teachers from Exmoor Zoo back to Minehead Middle School flipped on July 17. The bus had been travelling on the A396 at Cutcombe Hill near Minehead when it slid down a 20ft slope. Oliver was devastatingly found trapped in his seat having suffered fatal head injuries as a result, with many more children and adults being rushed to hospital. In the near-two weeks since Oliver's death, dozens of mourners in the community have laid bouquets of flowers outside his former school. Now speaking for the first time since the loss of their son, Oliver's grieving parents, Lucy and Matthew, have thanked their 'amazing community' for how they have responded to the crash that shocked the seaside town. They said: 'As Oliver's parents we have seen first-hand the incredible response from the community after the awful collision earlier this month. 'We are so very grateful to all the many emergency service workers who responded initially and those who continue to provide support in the aftermath, through the police investigation and the hospital teams who continue to look after those who were injured.' With many on the bus suffering injuries that day, Lucy and Matthew thanked staff at the Rest and Be Thankful Pub, in Wheddon Cross, who 'opened their doors to everyone without hesitation' so that people could have a safe place to meet. Figures last week revealed that two children and three adults remained in hospital after the tragedy, to whom Lucy and Matthew sent their 'best wishes and hopes for a speedy recovery'. They continued: 'The support we've received from our amazing community has been overwhelming. To those who left kind messages, or flowers outside the school, we want to say thank you. 'We are also grateful beyond words for all the staff and parents at the wonderful Minehead Middle School and for the love we've been shown by all our family and friends. We truly do appreciate you all. 'Finally, we would also like to pass on our thanks to the police investigation team for their support and ongoing hard work. We know this is a complex and emotive investigation but we appreciate their regular updates and continued efforts.' The headteacher of Minehead Middle School, Laura Mackie, also issued a tribute to Oliver as she said the school would 'always treasure the moments we shared with him'. In a statement on Thursday, she added: 'The loss of such a brilliant young life has profoundly affected everyone - students, staff, families, and the wider community. 'We continue to keep Oliver and those closest to him firmly in our thoughts, and we are supporting our school community with great care and sensitivity as we begin to process what has happened. 'Our focus remains on caring for one another and moving forward gently, with compassion, as we begin to navigate the future together.' The inquest into Oliver's death opened at Somerset Coroner's Court last Thursday and is due to resume on January 14. Assistant coroner Vanessa McKinlay read evidence of identification from coroner's officer Ben Batley, which said: 'Oliver was found seated in the coach with his seat belt on. His death was confirmed by the attending paramedic. 'Oliver's provisional cause of death is head injury pending results of laboratory investigations.' The inquest will resume with a one-day hearing to involve evidence from witnesses including the adult passengers on the coach, other witnesses, the coach driver, and specialist collision investigators and vehicle examiners. Around £100,000 has been raised to support those affected by the coach crash by the Somerset Community Foundation's (SCF) Together for West Somerset appeal as well as individual fundraisers.
BBC News
3 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Parents of boy killed in Somerset coach crash thank community
The parents of a 10-year-old boy who died in a coach crash have publicly thanked the "amazing community" supporting them. Oliver Price, a pupil at Minehead Middle School in Minehead, Somerset, suffered a fatal head injury when the coach he was travelling on with his classmates left the A396 in Exmoor and slid down a 6m (20ft) slope on 17 July.A huge emergency response descended on the scene in the aftermath of the crash, with members of the public in the Wheddon Cross area quickly volunteering to support rescue and relief efforts. In a statement shared via police, Oliver's parents Lucy and Matthew said the support they had received since his death had been "overwhelming". In the days after the crash dozens of people left cards and bunches of flowers in tribute to Oliver and the other children and adults injured in the incident outside the people were taken to hospital to be treated for their injuries, with two children and one adult remaining in hospital. 'So very grateful' In their statement Lucy and Matthew said they had seen "first-hand the incredible response from the community" after the "awful collision"."We are so very grateful to all the many emergency service workers who responded initially and those who continue to provide support in the aftermath, through the police investigation and the hospital teams who continue to look after those who were injured," they said. They also thanked the team at the Rest and Be Thankful pub in Wheddon Cross, which opened its doors as a rest centre during the incident - allowing paramedics to treat the injured and parents to reunite with their children. "We send our best wishes and hopes for a speedy recovery to the other children and staff on the bus, particularly those who are still in hospital," they continued. "You are all in our thoughts."The support we've received from our amazing community has been overwhelming. To those who left kind messages, or flowers outside the school, we want to say thank you." The coach was on its way back to Minehead Middle School from a day trip to Exmoor, carrying up to 70 people, when it crashed. Lucy and Matthew said they were "grateful beyond words" for the staff and parents at the "wonderful" school, as well as the "love we've been shown" by family and friends. "Finally, we would also like to pass on our thanks to the police investigation team for their support and ongoing hard work," they added. "We know this is a complex and emotive investigation but we appreciate their regular updates and continued efforts."
Yahoo
20-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
London leaver: 'we swapped a Battersea townhouse for 25 acres near the Devon coast'
Until quite recently Jenny and Ed Henderson's only pet-owning experience was with a couple of gerbils and rats when they were students. Today the couple and their two sons care for a menagerie including four cows, four pigs, four goats, two peacocks, and 19 chickens at their Exmoor smallholding. Once Loki, seven, and Bodhi, three, are up and ready for school and nursery Jenny turns her attention to the animals, distributing breakfasts, letting the hens out, and making sure all is well. 'The goats are the worst,' she says. 'You never know when one of them will get its head stuck in the fence, and they are real escape artists.' Life was very different back in London, where Jenny, 40 was getting increasingly burned out working as a primary school teacher, and Ed, also 40, was a freelance photographer and videographer. The couple had met at boarding school in Dorset and they got an early start on the property ladder, buying their four-bedroom Victorian house in Battersea back in 2003 when they were both students and taking in lodgers to help pay the mortgage. But London was never their lifelong plan. 'It had always been in our heads that we wanted to live by the sea, and to be out of London once kids came along,' says Jenny. They made their first escape attempt early in the pandemic in the hopes of being able to move before Loki started school, but they found the great race for space when half of the city appeared to be moving to the coast too hot to handle. 'Everything in the South West was going for crazy money and nobody wanted to buy our London house so after about a year we took it off the market again,' says Jenny. They made their second attempt in 2023. This time they were able to sell their Battersea home for just over £1 million. The family then spent several months staying with a series of family and friends before, in October 2023, they spent £1.35 million on Heale Farm – a traditional Devon farmhouse with around 25 acres of land, and three holiday cottages near the village of Parracombe, about four miles from the coast ( 'After getting burnt out with the stress and demands of the education system I decided to leave teaching, so our focus was to find somewhere that would bring me some income,' explains Jenny. The family has found locals friendly and welcoming – their neighbours are farmers who have helped teach them how to care for their livestock, the boys are happy at the tiny village school and with the fact they can go to the beach after school, and Parracombe has a shop and a pub. 'We were a bit nervous before we moved about what people would think of these London blow-ins,' says Jenny. 'But everyone has been friendly and welcoming. We have really thrown ourselves into the community – I am a parent governor at the school and we shop locally and use the local pubs – but I still feel really lucky in that respect. 'Do we have any regrets about leaving London? None at all.'
BBC News
18-07-2025
- BBC News
Boy, 10, dead as nine in hospital after Somerset coach crash
A school's head teacher says she feels "complete devastation" after one of her pupils was killed in a coach crash.A 10-year-old boy died after a coach returning pupils to Minehead Middle School after a trip to Exmoor Zoo crashed in Somerset on other children remain in hospital - two at Bristol Children's Hospital and four in Somerset. Three adults are also being treated in hospital in Somerset, police school's head teacher Laura Mackie said the loss was "unimaginable", adding: "[I'm] thinking of the student that we lost, their family, their friends, all of their loved ones." Avon and Somerset Police declared a major incident after the single-vehicle collision at Cutcombe Hill near Wheddon Cross at about 15:00 BST on coach flipped onto its roof and slid down a mother-of-two Lianna O'Connor said: "I think as a community it's just as one mum cries, every other mum cries." The coach was carrying about 70 people, many of them pupils from Minehead Middle School. In total, 21 passengers were taken to and Somerset Police said an investigation into the cause of the crash will take place and they have urged witnesses to come forward."Recovery of the vehicle and collision investigation are complex, and we expect the road to remain closed for a considerable time," a police spokesperson are being used to recover the overturned coach. One father said his 10-year-old daughter was on the school trip, but travelled on a different coach."I was able to pick [my daughter] up from school and didn't know anything until we got home," he said."It's just unbelievable isn't it?"[I'm] absolutely devastated for the families and people on the bus that crashed." The school's headteacher Laura Mackie laid flowers and said she was feeling "absolute devastation and heartbreak"."[I'm] thinking of my staff team who are amazing, dedicated, and all of our wonderful students that have been affected and impacted by this awful, awful incident. It's just been horrific," she added. Rachel Gilmour, MP for Tiverton and Minehead, said she was working with Somerset Council to seek funding from central government for therapy for the affected Gilmour said she was "completely distraught" after the crash in her said: "One becomes an MP and bizarrely, we don't think about this sort of thing, we think about the NHS and looking after our farmers and things like that."And then this, this is what being a community MP is all about. I've just been in to see the head teacher, I'm a big hugger, so I've been giving a lot of hugs today."A spokesperson for Exmoor Zoo said they "cannot believe that fate has been so cruel to such a lovely, lively, well behaved group of children"."All our thoughts, blessings and prayers go out to everybody involved, we cannot comprehend what the children, their parents, teachers and emergency crews are all going through now," they added.
Times
18-07-2025
- General
- Times
Minehead school bus crash: pupil who died was ten-year-old boy
A ten-year-old boy who died in a coach crash in Somerset has been described as 'so kind to everyone'. On Friday flowers were laid outside the school to which he was returning after a trip to the zoo. Twenty-one passengers were taken to hospital, some with serious injuries, when the 70-seater vehicle swerved off a country road between the villages of Wheddon Cross and Timberscombe on Exmoor on Thursday at about 3pm. The bus had been carrying pupils, aged nine and ten, back to Minehead Middle School after an end-of-term trip to Exmoor Zoo. On Friday, police confirmed that the child who died in the crash was a boy aged ten. He was named locally as Oliver. Formal identification has not yet been completed A steady stream of people, including pupils and classmates of the boy, gathered outside the school gates. One card described him as 'so kind to everyone'. It read: 'Dear Oliver, I am not really sure what to write, but we will all miss you. You were so kind to everyone and you are a very good friend and could always make me laugh with with your jokes.' Another message said: 'RIP Oliver, we sure are going to miss your infectious smile. Shine bright angel. Thinking of your family.' The coach crashed at about 3.15pm on Thursday, on a steep and winding section of the A396, which is used daily by school buses. Glass had shattered at the front of the coach. Having gone over the edge of the steep road, it had rolled onto its roof as it slid 20ft down a ravine. An off-duty firefighter travelling behind it immediately began trying to free passengers. A person who spoke to the firefighter said: 'He didn't think the guy was driving too fast. He said he just seemed to go off the road.' The Times understands the driver and about ten children were trapped in the wreckage and had to be cut out. Two children were taken to Bristol Royal Hospital for Children by air ambulance, while four children and three adults remain in hospital in Somerset. Emily Manning, ten, had a lucky escape when she was stopped from boarding the coach involved in the fatal crash because it was already full. After laying flowers with her father, Nick Manning, on Friday, she said: 'I wanted to be on the second coach because that's where my friends were but there were too many people so I got off. I felt upset because my friends were on that bus.' Manning, 48, a window cleaner, said his heart dropped when he received a phone call at work saying there had been an accident. 'It's every parent's nightmare, it's absolutely awful. I had constant messages and phone calls checking Emily was OK. People were panicking,' he said. One mother said her daughter was 'bruised battered and very traumatised' but had 'no broken bones', adding: 'She was so lucky.' SWNS Darcey Griffiths, ten, said that one moment she and her friends were talking about their visit and the next she realised she was dangling upside down. 'I remember the coach driving along. It didn't feel like anything was about to happen, but then it just rolled over,' she told The Daily Telegraph. 'I was upside down in my seat, and it was only my seatbelt keeping me in place. I didn't know what to do, but I saw a friend of mine undo her seatbelt and fall down, so I did the same.' She said she and her friends made their way along the coach's upturned ceiling until they found the door and crawled out. The South Western Ambulance Service sent 20 double-crewed ambulances, three air ambulances, a command team and two hazardous area response teams. The fire service sent eight fire engines and 60 firefighters. A police helicopter was also dispatched. Villagers in Wheddon Cross, who were nearest the crash site, opened their pub and village as a rescue hub. Isobel Wood, 26, a paralegal, was picking up a parcel in the Post Office when she saw a police cordon closing the road to Minehead and heard air ambulances overhead. 'They said a bus had gone over, and knowing the road we hoped it hadn't gone into the ravine,' she said. She raced home and told Jill Thompson, 68, her neighbour and the chairwoman of Moorland Hall. Thompson, an events manager, said the first child survivor to be reunited with his parents was grazed and terrified when he climbed out of a police car and ran into his mother's arms. 'It was devastating but everybody in the village was running down to see what they could do,' she said. We have all had children on the buses growing up, so it's hit all of us. It could have happened to our children and it's absolutely horrific. We have all been so upset.' The village hall WILL HUMPHRIES FOR THE TIMES Eric Norman, the landlord of the Rest and Be Thankful Inn, opened his doors to the emergency services. The Post Office provided tea and coffee for those in the village hall, and the pub made sure everyone was fed and watered. Wood said: 'It was the walking wounded going into the pub and the poor children were terrified. Some had blood on their clothes that very much wasn't their own, others had bandaged heads and blood coming down their faces and necks.' Peter Prior-Sankey, the director of Ridlers Coaches, said the driver was 'in a stable condition in hospital, but with a number of injuries'. The driver and school staff were described by Chief Superintendent Mark Edgington, of Avon and Somerset police, as 'deeply distressed' by the 'truly tragic' incident. A teacher from the school posted a message online to her 'amazing students', saying she 'couldn't be prouder of all of you today [and] how incredibly brave you have been'. MATTHEW HORWOOD/GETTY IMAGES 'You have looked after each in what was a life-changing event,' she wrote. 'We will get through this together. I am so grateful to my wonderful colleagues during this time who were also fighting to help as many people as we could. My deepest condolences to all parents, carers, family and friends involved. 'Finally, thank you to the emergency services who have saved many lives today and to the brilliant public who went out of their way to look after myself and most importantly the wonderful students of Minehead Middle School.''
