Camden News - Salma's Car 'DEFECTIVE'

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Camden New Journal - EXCLUSIVE By ROISIN GADELRAB
Published: 3 April 2008

Salma ElSharkawy

SALMA'S CAR 'DEFECTIVE'

Home admits vehicle in fatal fireball crash had faulty tyres

A CARE home paid by Camden Council to look after a troubled schoolgirl sent her out in a car with defective tyres on the day she died in a tragic road crash, an inquest has heard.
Haverstock School pupil Salma ElSharkawy, 12, and her care worker Elizabeth Fitton, 23, both died in a fireball on a country road in Derbyshire last July.
Directors of Adventure Care Limited, the Buxton private care home looking after Salma, admitted at a coroner’s inquest in Chesterfield on Thursday that the tyres on their car were “defective and not safe”.
Helen Slater, who set the company up, told the hearing: “Not a day goes past that I’m not sorry for that.”
In an emotional courtroom, witnesses recalled the horrific moment the car burst into flames.
Adventure Care, who were paid £3,000 a week to cover Salma’s care, has already been prosecuted and fined for using a car with bald tyres.
Salma, from Gospel Oak, had written in a private diary that she wanted to be reunited with her parents after two years of running away from foster families and care homes.
Her case put the microscope on the way the council works with families and children that are taken into care.
Her mother Mary O’Sullivan said after the hearing: “I’ll never get over Salma. Camden should have tried to work with the family and let her come home.”

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