Mother's grief over death of daughter in canyon crash

The mother of a music producer killed in a car that plunged 600 feet down a canyon in California has told of her traumatic efforts to lay her daughter to rest.

Julia Anne Webb, 34, from Fulham, London, died when a friend accidentally reversed her VW Cabriolet over a cliff edge as they left a party in Malibu.

Her mother, Emmy, said: "She was my only child, her father had died only two years before this of a brain tumour. Now I feel lost."

Mrs Webb said she only learned of her daughter's death when two friends came to the family house to tell her.

"I can still remember the day when I was told. Neither the LAPD (Los Angeles police) nor the British Embassy bothered. It was broadcast on American television way before I, her mother, even knew about it"

Mrs Webb also told of the horrendous day her daughter's body was returned to the UK. "They sent my daughter's body back all cut up after the autopsy and I did not recognise her.

"I arrived at the airport with a red rose to lay on her coffin, but instead they brought her home in a white cardboard box. I wanted a hearse and instead they brought a black van. When they arrived back at the undertakers in Fulham they had nobody to lift her into the undertakers and I had to carry my own daughter in.

"They had not even cleaned the mud off her body. I could not even recognise her"

Julia, who used to work for Sky TV, graduated from Royal Holloway College, University of London, before going to the US to pursue her dream of working as a producer.

At the time of her death in January last year, she was developing a production company with a friend. Her father was the late film and TV music composer Roger Webb, who worked alongside stars including Bette Davis and Vera Lynn.

An inquest at Westminster Coroner's Court heard that the driver of the car, Alexandria Thompson, somehow survived the crash after the VW ended up upside down in an oak tree, 100 feet above the canyon floor.

Ms Thompson later admitted manslaughter and violating the Californian penal code for which she received a fine and community service.

Coroner Dr Paul Knapman returned a verdict of unlawful killing. Mrs Webb said that when asked by a Californian district judge whether he should give the driver a jail sentence, she said no.

She was awarded $2million (£1.06m) at a civil hearing but insurance firms have yet to pay up.

Mrs Webb added: "I would use the money to start trust funds, which will then be paid into charities my daughter supported. It's scandalous. She paid all this money into an insurance policy and they are refusing to do their part."