Mum makes e-scooter plea after daughter brain damaged by Northampton driver

A mother has urged e-scooter riders to wear helmets after her daughter was left with brain damage after being struck by a dangerous driver.

A car on the wrong side of the road hit 25-year-old Kirri-Anne Hossain-Reid on Towcester Road, in Northampton last year.

Helmets are recommended but are not a legal requirement on e-scooters.

Debbie McCann said her daughter's injuries "wouldn't have been so bad" if she had been wearing a helmet.

She said her daughter was "very outgoing, loved living life to the max and now it's all been taken away because of one silly incident".

Mark Unwin, 62, of Kenmuir Crescent, Northampton, hit Ms Hossain-Reid when he was on the wrong side of the road while overtaking a van.

He pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and was jailed for two years on 10 March at Northampton Crown Court.

The court heard Unwin had failed to merge his Vauxhall Mokka with other traffic and was parallel with a red van when he hit Ms Hossain-Reid, who had been coming the other way on a Voi e-scooter.

Ms Hossain-Reid was taken to hospital and is now living at a specialist brain injury unit with limited communication and mobility.

Her mother said: "If she'd have had that helmet on with the scooter it wouldn't have been so bad."

She believed that helmets should be compulsory, especially as rental e-scooters can ride on the road, adding: "I just wish Kirri-Anne had a helmet on."

Ms McCann said: "Now she is stuck in a wheelchair or she's in bed because she's restricted with what she can do because of the frontal lobe damage.

"She gets very frustrated because she knows what she wants to say, but it doesn't come out."

Ms McCann said her daughter had made progress since the collision and the family were "with her all the time".

"She's learned to use a laptop, she can say 'yes' and 'no', she says 'Mum, love you', she's doing so well, just amazing," she said.

Ms Hossain-Reid's sister Kiah Ratcliffe said: "She was just absolutely amazing, like a heart of gold. If anyone needed anything doing and she'll just should be there in a heartbeat.

"She was my best friend."

She said seeing her sister in hospital after the crash was "awful, not a nice picture at all, I looked at her and she just didn't look like my sister".

The family said they were now raising money for the Northamptonshire and Warwickshire Air Ambulance and the University Hospital Coventry, which they said saved Ms Hossain-Reid's life.

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