Peak Rate: Turning Luke McCormick’s Victims Into Media Campaigners
LUKE McCormick ploughed his car into the family Peak, killing brothers Arron, 10, and his brother Ben, 8. Their father Phil, 37, who was driving, suffered serious injuries.
McCormick was jailed for seven years and four months, having admitted causing death by dangerous driving and being twice over the drink drive limit.
Lives ruined. Lives ended.
But Luke McCormick was a professional footballer for Plymouth Argyle. And this gives the story an added edge. And it means the mother of the killed boys cannot be left alone.
Two weeks ago McCormick’s friend, Ipswich Town footballer David Norris, scored a goal and celebrated by crossing his wrists as if bound by handcuffs. Norris was made to apologise, and Mrs Peak was invited to say how awful it was.
Now the Sun leads with: “KILLER GOALIE TO BE DAD – McCormick’s girls is 5 month’s pregnant.”
Says an unnamed “pal”:
“It seems ironic he has taken two lives yet gained one himself.” For added emotions, the Sun says that Naomi Richards, McCormick’s fiancée, “is “thought to have conceived at around the time of the motorway smash.”
And once again the Sun is on the phone, telling Mrs Peak, and recording her words.
“What I want to say wouldn’t be printable,” says she. But she does say it and it is printed: “Life is a gift and I don’t begrudge anyone having children or grandchildren… I just hope he realises how precious life is so he can be a decent father when he gets out.”
Mrs Peak is a woman grieving for a terrible loss. And the Sun is on the phone again.
“The mum of the two boys killed by a drunken goalie Luke McCormick yesterday blasted a crackdown on drivers as too little too late.”
Says she:
“Why didn’t they start doing this at the beginning of the year?”
And..? And no more. Less of a blast than a lament.
The Sun seems keen for Mrs Peak to become an anti-drink drive campaigner, the voice of the victim, and to do for her what it did for the victims of knife crime. And, true, enough she does not have to speek with the paper.
Mrs Peak would not wish what happened to her family on anyone else. But is seeking the views of a person so soon after the horrors of the crime that has so damaged their lives worthwhile?
Or is it the Sun just using her to fill in the blanks..?
The Decline Of The English Society: The Mothers’ Country
Posted: 22nd, November 2008 | In: Reviews Comments (2) | TrackBack | Permalink
