THE mother of a man killed in a traffic collision in December 2019 is calling on the press to be banned from publishing images from the scene of crashes.
Karen Speer’s son, Alan Jones, a self-employed joiner, was killed in a two vehicle collision on the Ballyutoag Road area of Crumlin as he travelled to work at around 7am on 17 December 2019.
To this day, Karen is unaware of the circumstances surrounding the collision in which her son died with the coroner’s report due to be published on 18 August.
At the time, the PSNI advised Karen not to seek out images from the scene. However, that afternoon a newspaper published an image of the wreck on their social media pages.
Detailing how she felt when she saw the image, Karen said: “I was distraught. The police told me not to look for images from the scene and I couldn’t go and identify my son’s body because of the impact that could have on my mental health.
“That afternoon I went on Facebook and a newspaper had published an image of the wrecked van and some of the comments were distressing.
“I didn’t know if a member of the public had taken the image or if it was one of their photographers. I then contacted the paper and explained that he was my son and asked for the photo and the comments to be removed.
“They simply replied ‘comments removed’.
“These images don’t add anything to the story. People forget about it in a day or two but for us families, those images stay in our head” she added.
Karen has also hit out at the lack of support for families who are bereaved through road traffic collisions.
“The PSNI gave me contacts for support groups but they are all based in England. I have also been waiting 19 months to be seen by Cruse for bereavement counselling.
“I was lucky to find the Road Ahead Support Group which is based in Newry. It is run by a woman who lost her son in a similar situation to myself and they have been a great help but there is nothing at all in Belfast.
“When I have raised this issue regarding the photographs with other bereaved families they have agreed with me. It is just morally wrong.”
People Before Profit MLA, Gerry Carroll said: “When it comes to the reporting of vehicle collisions that have caused serious injury or death we need to ensure that the families who are directly impacted by them are front and centre in shaping what newspapers or online media outlets report and use.
“It’s unacceptable that families can see distressing images of the scene where their loved ones were injured or lost their lives broadcasted in such a public way, despite the authorities rightly cautioning against family members seeing the scene of the accident due to its distressing nature.”
