Inquest opens into car crash death

Friday 3rd September 2010, 2:59PM BST.

Staff at the Co-op Grand Marché joined a dress-down day by wearing red, Maria Pestana's favourite colour. Picture: Rob Currie (01040812)

THE cause of an accident which killed a mother and seriously injured her sister and three children is still not known.

Maria Fátima Sousa Pestana died in hospital less than an hour after she crashed into a bank at the Haute Croix junction in St John on Sunday 22 August.

At the opening of the inquest yesterday four of her family members were told that the 34-year-old mother died of head and chest injuries, but no information was given about the cause of the crash involving the silver Daihatsu.

Meanwhile, staff throughout Co-op stores in the Island, where Mrs Pestana’s husband works, had a dress-down day yesterday to raise funds to repatriate Mrs Pestana’s body to Madeira for the funeral.

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