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Daily Mail (London)
April 9, 2008 Wednesday
Girl, 15, high on drink and drugs, let taxi run her over
A GIRL of 15 on a drink and drugs binge was killed when a taxi ran over her as she lay in the road.
Megan Cowell was alone as she staggered into the road, lay down and cried: 'I'm fed up...kill me.' Moments later a taxi hit her, dragging her body 36ft along the road, an inquest heard.
The court heard she had drunk enough to be three times over the legal driving limit and had traces of cocaine and cannabis in her system.
Taxi driver David Downtown wept as he told the court he did not see Megan lying in the road. He hit her as he drove his Ford Mondeo into Basildon, Essex, at 11pm on a rainy night in November 2006.
'I can look you in the eye and say I didn't see nothing whatsoever because if I did I could have stopped,' he told Chelmsford Coroner's Court.
He turned to Megan's mother Christine and added: 'I am so, so sorry. If I could have avoided it I would have done.' Police originally thought Megan had been killed by a hit-and-run driver.
Bernard Chamberlain, who was in his flat nearby, said he saw Megan staggering past then lying face down in the road. He said: 'She was talking to herself. She said, "Kill me, I want to die, somebody kill me". She laid in the road. I knew what was going to happen. I heard this deafening thud and ran down to try and help. I saw the girl and knew straightaway that she was dead.' Megan lived with her mother, stepfather Vaughan Casbard, sister Leanne and brother Wayne in Basildon. She had started a landscape gardening course.
Essex Coroner Caroline Beasley-Murray said: 'There was a very high level of alcohol in her blood, 268mg per 100ml of blood, over three times above the legal driving limit. Also, there were traces of cocaine and cannabis in her system which would have exacerbated the effect of the alcohol. This would have affected her judgment, the way she was thinking and behaving.' She said she did not believe Megan intended to kill herself and had died as a result of a road traffic collision..
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