Grieving families in plea to mystery driver who may have answers to death crash which killed Shropshire pair
The families of two young men who died in an horrific crash on the Shropshire border have pleaded with a mystery driver to come forward and bring some form of closure to the tragedy.
They say not knowing why the Vauxhall Corsa driven by Philip Madden, 19, of Northwood, near Wem, went out of control and hit a tree, killing him and his best friend and passenger Shane Vickers, 22, of Bettisfield, is eating away at them.
An inquest in Ruthin yesterday heard that a car, seen on a private CCTV camera, must have passed the crash seconds after it happened.
Mr Madden and Mr Vickers were killed on the evening of October 30, 2014, on Ellesmere Road, Bronington.
Coroner John Gittins appealed for the driver or anyone who had information to contact police.
"Come forward and give the family some closure. The reality of what happened is awful, not knowing what happened is equally as bad," he said.
He told the families they should be proud of their sons.
"Both of them were very likeable and had their whole futures ahead of them," he said.
The inquest was told that Mr Madden, who had passed his test 12 weeks earlier, was a safety conscious driver who had had a black box fitting to the car to bring down his insurance costs. However the box was destroyed when fire engulfed the Corsa. Mr Madden had been an apprentice electrician for a local company and was studying at Yale College in Wrexham. His mother, Teresa Madden, said he loved motorbikes. She said that because he did not drink he quickly became the designated driver when out with his friends.
Christine Jones, mother of Mr Vickers, said her son left school at 16 and worked for a local builder before going to Shrewsbury College to do a joinery course. "He set up his own business at 18 and bought his own van. He took pride in his work," she said.
"Three months before the accident he threw himself into motocross. He was always sensible on the roads."
Mrs Jones said: "Knowing that there was another car at the scene but not knowing whether it was involved or not is eating away at us.
"We have to face the fact that we might never know what happened."
She praised the drivers who stopped to pull her son and Mr Madden from the car.
Post mortems showed the two men had suffered major traumatic injuries and would have died or become unconscious instantly.
"If the men had not got to them and pulled them free, then we would have never known that and would always have had the fear that they had suffered," she said.
