Toy and floral tributes have been left in memory of Liam
By Kevin Duguid
A WOMAN has appeared in court charged with stealing a teddy bear from a memorial to a six-year-old boy who was knocked down and killed outside a caravan park.
Liam McDonald died after being struck by a car outside Seton Sands Holiday Park last Tuesday.
Natalie Golder has since appeared in court charged with stealing the bear from an imromptu tribute set up in Liam’s name.
The 21-year-old is alleged to have taken the teddy from the memorial on Links Road three days after Liam died there.
Golder, who is from the Fairhill area of Hamilton, has since denied the allegation during a hearing at Haddington Sheriff Court.
A number of toy and floral tributes were placed at the site after the accident.
A relative, thought to be Liam’s father, returnedhours after the youngster waskilledin a state of distress and sat down for some time alongside where tributes had been laid.
Earlier, holidaymakers had rushed to the scene, at a set of traffic lights outside the gates of the park, and attempted to resuscitate the youngster.
William Millar, 46, from Inverness, was one of the first there. He said: “I looked out and then saw the wee kid lying there so I ran over and tried to do what I could to resuscitate him.
“One woman was doing compressions and I was doing the breaths but it was no good, he was already gone.”
Eyewitness Joan Watson, who has recently bought a home on the caravan park, said an ambulance crew arrived soon after, as did the boy’s grandmother.
She said: “We could see the ambulance men attending to the young lad.
“The gran was clearly hysterical. The wee boy’s shoes were off (as a result of being struck].
“It was so upsetting.”
The elderly male driver stopped immediately after the accident and helped the police with their investigations.
Liam was with his young cousins, believed to be around the same age, who witnessed the accident.
Staff at the holiday village did their best to console his devastated family.
The youngster was enjoying a break with his grandmother and cousins at the holiday village when he was killed.It’s believed Liam had gone into the road to retrieve a dropped playing card when he was struck by a blue Vauxhall Corsa.
In a statement the family thanked those who had gone to the boy’s aid immediately after he was knocked down.
They said:
“We would like to thank everyone who tried to help Liam in the minutes after the accident and for those who have provided support to us in the following hours and days.
“He was a very precious little boy and we miss him very much. “
The family also requested that they be left alone to grieve.
A van driver who witnessed the tragedy was later traced by police using CCTV.
The case against Golder is due to call again next month.
