Louise’s husband, John, died in 2023 after being knocked off his bicycle by a minibus. Delays in the investigation left her with more questions than answers about what happened.
A knock on the door late one night in May 2023 barely woke Louise Liddle. She went downstairs, still half asleep, to let in her husband John. He’d been at football training, got caught up talking to friends afterwards and couldn’t find his key, she thought. But as she turned away to go back upstairs to bed, it suddenly registered that it wasn’t John stepping into the hallway – it was two police officers.
“They said John had been involved in a collision and they needed to take me to the hospital straight away,” Louise recalls. “I called the neighbour and she came round to look after our boys, who were six and eight at the time, and the police rushed me to the hospital where John was in A&E.”
His condition was so unstable that Louise, and John’s parents, who had joined her at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary, had to wait several hours to see him. “He was sent for an emergency scan, and the doctors had to operate right away to relieve pressure on his brain,” she adds. “The whole time the police were wonderful, but they couldn’t tell us anything. We didn’t know for a while what had happened – only that there had been a collision.”
Louise and the family remained by John’s bedside as he lay unresponsive and ventilated in intensive care for 18 days. He died on 21 May 2023.
Over the following weeks, Louise learned fragments of what happened the night of the crash. John had been cycling home from football training and was travelling along a 40mph stretch of road in Rowlands Gill, Gateshead. Just minutes away from home, as he manoeuvred into the middle of the road to turn right, a minibus attempted to overtake him, colliding into him at speed.
However, the investigation suffered a number of delays due to uncertainty over the minibus driver’s employment status and entitlement to legal representation, among other things.
“We had no information about how John died, so we had to say our goodbyes without knowing what really happened and why.”
“I was waiting a fortnight for the coroner’s office to release John’s body, because I was told the driver could request a second post-mortem. I couldn’t organise a funeral, give family or friends any updates or think about what was going to happen next,” Louise says.
“We eventually had the funeral, but we still had no information about how John died, so we had to say our goodbyes without knowing what really happened and why.”
It wasn’t until nine weeks after the crash that police were finally able to interview the driver. They referred the case to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) twice, challenging the CPS’s initial decision not to prosecute the driver. The CPS rejected the case a second time and no criminal charges were brought.
As well as navigating her own bereavement and life as a sole parent to two young sons, Louise’s grief was compounded by delays in the investigation and, as a result, the coronial process. To this day, she still doesn’t know exactly what caused the collision that killed John, who was wearing reflective clothing and a helmet.
Her experience has raised questions over how public service vehicle (PSV) operators manage incidents and safeguard their drivers and other road users. Louise is now campaigning to highlight these problems.
For example, although lorry, bus and coach drivers must complete 35 hours of continuing professional development (CPD) every five years to demonstrate their competence, there are no clear, set standards prescribing what that training should entail – like emergency response protocols.
“I believe if you drive for a living your CPD should cover how to deal with emergency situations,” Louise argues.
“The driver returned to work straight away, driving minibuses past my house every day. If it had been a different bus operator, the driver wouldn’t have been allowed to go back to work before a certain amount of time, with occupational health and well-being support.
“We need consistency across the country, so that no matter where a collision takes place, the same standards and protocols apply with operators so families can understand the process police are navigating them through.”
Louise's Brake caseworker signposted her to specialist bereavement support for her sons, Ewan (L) and James (R).
Louise plans to discuss the issues she has identified with transport minister Lilian Greenwood MP. Meanwhile, she has channelled her grief and campaigning spirit to call for road safety improvements in her community.
Following John’s death and a second crash in the same area, Louise set to work to have the maximum speed limit lowered.
“Within a couple of weeks of John’s incident, a car flipped and ended up upside-down in someone’s garden. So, we lobbied the community, local councillors and the MP in the area,” she says. A petition amassed more than 600 signatures, forcing Gateshead Council to act.
In November 2024, they implemented a temporary speed limit reduction from 40mph to 30mph on a 1.5km stretch of road that includes the spot where John’s crash occurred. An 18-month consultation on the impact of the change is due to conclude in spring 2026.
At John’s inquest in January 2025, the coroner reported that a 40mph speed limit is unsafe for the road. Louise hopes that will be the impetus for the council to keep the 30mph limit in place permanently.
“They are reviewing the whole stretch of road, looking at cycle lanes and reviewing where pedestrian crossings are,” she says. “A lot of the Government’s road safety strategy is about vulnerable road users. John was a vulnerable road user – we need to do more to protect people like him.
Louise credits a strong family network with helping her and her two sons, who are now nine and 11, to adjust to life after John’s death. She also had a Brake caseworker in the aftermath of the crash.
“I was able to rant to her about my anger at what had happened and all the gaps I was spotting in the industry,” Louise recalls. “She also signposted some free bereavement support for the boys, which one of them still accesses today. That was all really helpful.
“But for me, it’s more about ‘What can we fix here?’ We have to accept that John’s died, but we also have to try and stop others from going through what we’ve experienced.”