Brightlingsea: Father's 35-year agony after son's death (From Essex County Standard)

Brightlingsea: Father's 35-year agony after son's death

9:00am Tuesday 20th October 2009

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Thirty five years after three teenagers were killed in a car crash, the man wanted for their deaths could be extradited from Australia.

Gerald Nevard fled the country after Brian Holdstock, Howard Howells and Janet Gilpen lost their lives in the collision in Thorrington in August 1974.

A warrant for his arrest was issued last week at Colchester Magistrates' Court, and the Australian authorities are now considering his extradition.

Here, one father tells of his 35-year agony since the crash – and why he wants Nevard brought to justice.

REG Holdstock can still remember the last conversation he had with his son Brian.

It may be more than three decades on, but the memory is just as vivid for the retired builder from Maltings Road, Brightlingsea.

Now 79, Mr Holdstock was about to go on holiday to Wales with his wife Marjorie and youngest son Reggie, who was 11 at the time.

The night before they were due to leave, 17-year-old Brian was on his way to the cinema in Clacton with his best friend Howard Howells, 18, and two female friends.

Mr Holdstock said: “They were going in Howard's Escort and I joked with them, asking if they were sure it would get them to Clacton.

“I loved tormenting them.

“They said with an extra £5 they could treat the girls to some fish and chips afterwards.

“I told them 'on your bike'.”

He added: “I told Brian to behave himself and that I'd see him a week.

“That was it.”

Later that night, the group was in a horrific collision with a sports car at the bottom of Tenpenny Hill in Thorrington.

Brian and Howard were killed instantly, while 16-year-old Janet Gilpen of Wivenhoe died on her way to hospital.

Fourteen-year-old Sasanqua Radclyffe, **corr** also of Wivenhoe, suffered minor injuries.

Mr Holdstock said Tottenham Hotspur fan Brian's death left a gaping hole in the family, which also included eldest son Steven, now 59.

“Everyone thought the world of him,” he said.

“He had curly hair so everyone called him Shirley Temple. He was always having a laugh.

“Him and Howard had known each other for years – they were two little characters.

“They always had young ladies around them.”

He added: “On their funerals, you would have thought kings were being buried - the whole town stopped.

“They were buried side by side.

“We all wanted that.”

Mr Holdstock said Brian's death hit one person harder than most – his loving mother Marjorie.

“They worked together at Hookers in Brightlingsea, so they were together eight hours a day,” he said.

“Before he died she was a bubbly person and we'd often go away in our motor caravan on holiday.

“But a year afterwards she had to go into Severalls mental hospital for three months.

“I had to take my son Reggie there to see her – he was only young and it frightened the life out of him.”

He added: “She was never the same again.”

The Holdstocks' pain was made worse by the disappearance of Gerald Nevard, the driver of the sports car.

An insurance inspector of Church Road, Thorrington, the then 31-year-old was served with a summons to face three counts of death by dangerous driving.

But he avoided the courts by moving to Australia – where he remains to this day.

At the time, the Holdstocks and the Howells petitioned for justice to be done, collecting 10,000 signatures which were handed to then-prime minister Harold Wilson at Downing Street.

But they were told that bringing Nevard back to England was against the rules of an extradition treaty.

Now, after a fresh review of the case, police want to arrest Nevard for three counts of manslaughter.

Mr Holdstock said: “Hopefully he will be shamed into coming back.

“He's had a life of luxury for 35 years and has been laughing at all of us.

“I don't know how he could do it.

“He took away three innocent lives – they were so young with no harm in them.

“Howard's father and mother have gone to their graves with nothing done for their child.”

He added: “I will be there in court – as old as I am, I want to get hold of him.”

Mr Holdstock says he is relieved that his wife, who died four months ago, did not live to see the latest turn of events.

“I am thankful she is buried,” he said.

“This would have been too much for her and she would have taken an overdose.”

He added: “That man ruined her life.

“He should be brought to justice.”

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