Neal and Penny Staley, who tragically lost their 10-year-old daughter Evey in a fatal road traffic collision in Cowes back in 2012, have taken the difficult decision to bring their ‘Isle Drive Safe: Remember Evey charity’ to an end.
The couple have today (Friday) made the announcement – with great sadness – that the charity will cease to exist with immediate effect.
Over the past few years the charity has worked with Hampshire Constabulary to display the car in which Evey lost her life in order to help raise awareness of the effects of drink and drug driving. Speed limit repeater signs on wheelie bins across the Island is another initiative that the charity brought about.
Robert Blakely of Sandown was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being found guilty of causing Evey’s death by careless driving whilst unfit through drink and drugs.
In a statement Neal has said:
“Over the last couple of months certain aspects of my family’s lives have changed, making me consider what’s best for our future wellbeing. Penny, Ellie and I continue to need help to enable us to deal with the trauma and loss we have witnessed and suffered over the past five years.
“I now realise that this is the right time for us to move onto the next part of our lives and with a house move in the near future, it’s a chance, we hope, for a new beginning without our precious girl.
“It has been an incredibly difficult decision to make, but one brought about by our continued ill health, it goes without saying that my family’s immediate and future well-being will always come first”.
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Neal continued:
“The emotive subject of road safety is one we have chosen to address day in, day out over the past few years, providing us with much needed focus at a devastating time in our lives. It has played a large part in helping us try to process our loss.
“Now we head on and I want to thank you for your help, time, generosity and support over the last few years. It has meant so much to me and my family and I can’t thank you enough.
Remaining funds within the charity will be used to complete a road safety workbook for schools and any monies left over will then be split between primary schools across the Island to aid road safety.
Remaining funds are going to be used to complete and distribute a Key Stage 1 and 2 road safety workbook. Any monies left over will then be split equally and distributed to each of the primary schools on the Island with a caveat that the donations must be used for road safety initiatives for the children.
