Anger at fines for crush-kill trucker.

Byline: RICHARD ELIAS

THE family of a Scots bride-to-be crushed to death by an overloaded truck hit out last night after the driver and his bosses escaped with fines.

Lesley Clark, 30, died instantly when her car was almost completely flattened by the vehicle which was almost 2000 kilos overloaded with rubble when it rolled over on a roundabout.

Trucker Thomas Baxter was fined pounds 300 and his employers, Falmex Ltd, were fined pounds 6000 after they were found guilty of overloading the lorry and then using it in Wirral, Merseyside, in January last year.

Last night, Lesley's fiance condemned the fines as a "slap on the wrists".

Jamie Powell said that he shared "a lot of anger towards the company" with her family over the death of Lesley, who had just moved south from Edinburgh.

He said: "This accident would never have happened had people at the firm done their job properly. Lesley would still be here today and she would be my wife."

Jamie, who had planned to marry Lesley in Antigua last year, added: "Nothing we heard has shown this company to be competent. It has had nothing more than its wrists slapped.

"The people who overloaded the lorry should have been brought to trial to explain what they did."

The victim's mother, Margaret Clark, who runs a guest house in Edinburgh, added: "Lesley was such a wonderful daughter. She is gone but in all our hearts she will not be forgotten."

Lesley, who once worked for the late First Minister Donald Dewar, was training to be a Child Support Agency officer.

At Wirral Magistrates Court, Falmex's fines included pounds 500 for using a vehicle without an operator's licence.