Valentine couple on New York holiday killed by dustcart

A British couple were killed when a dustcart mounted a kerb and ploughed into them as they strolled hand-in-hand in New York during a Valentine's Day trip, it emerged yesterday.

Police said the driver fell unconscious after failing to take his seizure medicine and have charged him with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide over the deaths of mother-of-four Jacqueline Timmins, 47, and Andrew Hardie, 48, from Yeovil, Somerset.

Timmins' former husband, Robin, a builder, said: "Jacqueline was a wonderful, beautiful woman and a great mother. This is the sort of thing you think could never happen to you. There are millions and millions of people in New York and it had to be her, when she was so far from home."

He said the couple had been looking forward to their romantic holiday in New York. He added: "Andrew was a nice chap, and got on brilliantly with our children."

Timmins, a canteen cook, and Hardie, a repairman, lived with her youngest daughter Nikita, 12, and Hardie's 18-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son from a previous marriage. She also had three grown-up sons, Ryan, 25, Lee, 23 and Paul, 21, from her previous marriage.

Witnesses described how the vehicle swerved out of control, smashed into a lamppost and crushed street signs before careering into a delicatessen at 10.30pm on Tuesday. It is believed that a passenger in the truck had tried to take control when the driver fell unconscious.

The couple were walking back from a restaurant to the Comfort Inn in Manhattan, where they had been staying for a four-night Valentine's treat.

They had been due to return to the UK yesterday. The couple were a few hundred metres from the hotel when the accident happened.

The manager of the hotel, Harold Solomon, said: "It is a horrible, horrible tragedy. We have a lot of British people staying here and everyone is very upset."

Police immediately charged the truck driver. Auvryn Scarlett, 52, with two counts of manslaughter and two of criminally negligent homicide.

A police spokeswoman said the accident happened when the driver fell unconscious at the wheel. She said: "The driver suffered from seizures and was on medication. He chose not to take his medication and killed two people as a consequence of that."

A third pedestrian, New Yorker Abayomi Henderson, 23, was also injured in the accident. His condition was said to be serious.