UK NEWS

FACES OF GRIEF, PARENTS OF BOYS KILLED BY FOOTBALLER’S CAR

GRIEF: Mum Amanda weeps for her sons

Saturday June 28,2008

By Chris Riches

GRIEVING parents Philip and Amanda Peak yesterday said goodbye to their sons, killed in a motorway crash.

The funeral service for football-mad Ben Peak, eight, and his 10-year-old brother Arron, was a sea of red as mourners wore Manchester United shirts in tribute.

The boys died and their father Philip, 37, was left badly injured when their car collided with a 4x4 car allegedly driven by Plymouth Argyle goalkeeper Luke McCormick near Keele services in Staffordshire early on June 7.

The Peaks had been returning from a trip to Silverstone.

McCormick has been charged with two counts of causing death by dangerous driving and with driving with excess alcohol.

Yesterday Amanda, 30, and her husband wept as their sons’ red and white coffins were taken to Our Lady of St Lourdes in Partington, Manchester, in a horse-drawn carriage.

They were carried into church by pallbearers wearing red football shirts with the boys’ names and ages displayed on the back.

Philip, wearing a football shirt, sat in a wheelchair wearing a neck brace after being released from hospital on Tuesday suffering from a broken back and neck.

More than 200 mourners applauded a tearful tribute to the boys by the family’s neighbour, Phil Bennett.

He said: “The future we had imagined with Amanda and Phil and Arron and Ben is going to be so much different now, but it can still happen because we know the boys will be with us and part of our hearts.”