Pedestrian Rebecca Ableman, 30, had been out shopping at a local farm shop before she was struck on the head from behind by the grab of Kevin Miller's lorry.

William Carter, prosecuting, told Peterborough Crown Court that the boom on 71-year-old Miller’s loader crane “slew” to the nearside as he drove through the village of Willingham, Cambridgeshire.

He said that the grab struck Ms Ableman “in the head from behind”.

“She suffered catastrophic head and brain injuries from which she died on October 16, 2022,” he said.

Rebecca Ableman, who died in 2022, with her daughter Autumn (Image: Chris Tuczemskyi/SWNS)

He continued: “The prosecution case is that it was his failure adequately to secure the boom of his loader crane that amounted to carelessness in this case.”

Miller pleaded guilty to causing death by careless driving at an earlier hearing.

Mr Carter said that on the day of the incident, September 22, 2022, Miller had set out from his depot in Lynn at around 3.40am and travelled to a Network Rail yard in Leigh on Sea in Essex.

He collected “about 18 tonnes of scrap metal in the form of disused railway track”, the prosecutor said, and travelled through........

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