"We just don't want him to hurt himself", was the sentence that characterised much of the conversation between THE STAR and family members of Desrine Irvin, the newspaper vendor who was one of two women killed in a motor vehicle accident on Hagley Park Road on July 4. The mother of six children was five months' pregnant at the time.

Janet Ffrench, sister of the deceased, said since getting wind of an article published in The Sunday Gleaner where the driver of the vehicle, Alston Williams, said he has been having suicidal thoughts since the horrific accident, the family felt compelled to assure him that he had no need to do such a thing.

"We don't want him to hurt himself because that will only bring heartache to his family and we don't want that, we don't his family to have to go through that grief, we don't want him to end his life," Ffrench said. "And if my sister had survived, I'm sure she would not want him to hurt himself either because she is a people person."

Ffrench continued that harming Williams was far from their intention as the episode was a tragic accident.

"I feel sorry for him sometimes when I think about it, because I can only imagine the fear and shock that he is in," she said. "It was an accident that could have happened to any of us, it was not something that he did on purpose, so we don't want him to think that we are planning to hurt him."

Shackesha Wilson, the eldest of Irvin's children, said the family would even ask for leniency in the courtroom, even though the final word rested with the judge, as the family believed every man deserved a second chance.

Attempts to get an update from the police on the investigation were unsuccessful.