A dad has told how he was walking with a pram in a hospital car park when he heard a “revving and screeching” as a car hit them and killed his baby daughter.

Rob Hall had been walking in the grounds of Withybush Hospital in Haverfordwest, Wales, with eight-month old Mabli as he attempted to come to terms with his mother’s imminent death from motor neurone disease when they were struck. A car made its way across the road near the entrance to the hospital, over a pavement and straight into Rob, his brother and the pushchair that he had just strapped Mabli back into.

Within seconds, a peaceful and tranquil summer’s breeze had been punctured by a scene of total horror. Rob was hit by the car and thrown into a nearby parking space. He was hurt, but his main worry was what had happened to Mabli as all he could see was her pushchair which had been trampled underneath the white BMW.

“All of a sudden I heard this horrible revving and screeching,” he recalls. “The next thing I see is this white car, airborne. That was it. I was hit and thrown into a parking bay. I was on my hands and knees and the first thing I saw was the pram underneath the car. There was chaos, people running everywhere.

“Three nurses came over and picked me up because I couldn’t walk or stand. That didn’t matter. What mattered is where Mabli was. Nobody could see Mabli.” Rob pauses before adding: “The next thing I remember is somebody walking past me holding Mabli’s lifeless body . I’ll never be able to explain what that felt like.”

Rob didn’t know it yet but Mabli had been thrown some distance due to the impact of the car crashing into the pram. The car had travelled a total distance of 28 metres and reached a top speed of 30mph, reported WalesOnline.

Mabli’s mum Gwen had been with her dying mother-in-law at the time but within minutes she was running to the A&E department. Mabli was airlifted to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff and from there to a children’s hospital in Bristol. Rob and Gwen entered the room where she was being treated to be faced with a sight of machines, tubes and wires, all keeping their baby girl alive.

“She was so unwell,” says Rob. “We kept asking if she was going to be okay but nobody could tell us. Then eventually at about 3am a doctor came in and sat down. He said that it was very unlikely that she was going to survive.

“As soon as I was told I just went sick everywhere. It was the most horrific thing you could ever hear in your life. At first we just couldn’t believe it, we didn’t want to believe it. It was brutal. Things just got worse and worse and worse. But at least we were able to sit with her, so we did, for hours and hours, surrounded by all these horrible noises coming from these machines.”

When Mabli was sent for another scan, Rob had a phone call from his brother to say that his mother did not have long left to live in her hospital bed back in Haverfordwest. About two hours later, Rob had another phone call from Withybush Hospital, this time to inform him that his mother had died.

On the Friday, two days after the incident, Rob and Gwen’s other children arrived in Bristol to visit Mabli. They had to inform them that their baby sister was seriously unwell and was likely to die, and that their grandmother had passed away.

On the Saturday, doctors advised Rob and Gwen that the time had come to end Mabli’s life support. “Gwen’s sister-in-law was in labour that day and was due to give birth any minute, so we pleaded with the doctors not to switch the machines off yet because we did not want Mabli’s cousin’s birthday to be forever associated with Mabli’s death,” explains Rob.

As the clock ticked past midnight into Sunday morning, it was only Rob and Gwen that remained with their daughter in that hospital room. They sat with her, spoke to her, hugged her and kissed her, and at 12.30am on Sunday, June 25, Mabli Cariad Hall passed away.

“It’s just another part of this story that you couldn’t write,” says Rob. “I had nothing to do with my mum’s funeral, and I couldn’t be there when she died. All that was taken away from me.” Rob pauses before continuing: “The pain of that, the trauma of it all, is actually too much to process, to even begin to describe.”

Last month, 71-year-old Bridget Curtis from Begelly in Pembrokeshire was jailed for four years after admitting causing the death of Mabli by dangerous driving. It had taken 19 months for that sentence to be passed. Their pain was heightened by what they call a “lack of accountability” from Curtis.

Rob explained: “She was interviewed with a prepared statement and answered “no comment” to questions. We had not prepared ourselves to hear the words ‘no comment’. We wanted answers. To answer ‘no comment’ to questions about what happened is, in our minds, disgusting.

“From this point we were extremely angry and it was a nightmare, on top of the one we were already living through. We waited so long to find out what was going to happen and eventually, in September, 2024, Bridget Curtis pleaded guilty. That was one week before what should have been Mabli’s second birthday. A sentencing hearing was set for November last year and we again had to prepare ourselves for that. The build-up to every court date was horrendous; the anxiety, the pressure, you start to really feel it as it gets closer but you have to try and be strong for your other children and your family.

“On that day in November we were all getting ready for the sentencing hearing when we had another phone call. This time we were told the hearing was cancelled because Bridget Curtis had suffered a suspected heart attack. We kept thinking that things could not get any worse, but they did. We just wanted answers, and we wanted to know what was going to happen. We later found out that what she had actually suffered was a panic attack. This – this ordeal – is a daily thing for us as a family. The pain, the anguish, trying to learn how to live this new life, only to find out that she could not go through with the hearing because of a panic attack. They set a new date for January for her to be sentenced. That meant Bridget Curtis had another Christmas at home with her family. Mabli only ever had one Christmas.”

The court had heard how Curtis stopped her white BMW 520 automatic car near the hospital entrance. Her daughter got out of the vehicle and went to the rear door to retrieve her handbag. Unable to see the bag, she tapped on the window to get the attention of Curtis, who turned around to look for it herself. Prosecution barrister Craig Jones explained that, as Curtis was doing so, she was still sat in the driver’s seat with the engine of her car still running. “Throughout this period the defendant failed to switch off the engine,” Mr Jones said.

The barrister went on to explain that it was at this point, shortly before midday, that the car began to move forward. The dashcam footage played to the court showed the BMW driving across a section of the hospital grounds, onto a kerb and a grassy area where Mabli, her father, her uncle and others were gathered, before crashing into them.

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