A woman who drove a Land Rover into a tea party at a London primary school and killed two 8-year-old girls has been charged with causing death by dangerous driving.
London — A woman who drove a Land Rover into a tea party outside a London primary school celebrating the last day of classes in 2023, killing two 8-year-old girls and injuring several others, was charged with dangerous driving on Friday, authorities said.
Prosecutors said they decided to charge Claire Freemantle, 49, with two counts of dangerous driving causing death and seven counts of dangerous driving causing serious injury after the Metropolitan Police reopened their investigation and found new evidence.
The London police force initially apologized for the way it handled the accident and said it had referred its officers to a watchdog agency investigating police misconduct.
Freemantle was not originally charged because prosecutors said he had suffered an epileptic seizure. He issued a statement expressing his “deep sorrow” but said he had no recollection of what happened.
Defense lawyers questioned why prosecutors reversed their original decision not to charge Freemantle and said she would plead not guilty when she appears for the first time at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 16 June.
It is not clear what new evidence police found, but the reinvestigation follows complaints from the parents of Nuria Sajjad and Selena Lau, who were killed in the incident outside the private Study Preparatory School in Wimbledon, south London, on July 6, 2023.
The driver broke through a fence and entered the side of a school building. More than a dozen people were treated for injuries at the scene and 10, including several students, were taken to hospital for treatment.
