Nicola Johnson hit-and-run driver not caught, inquest told
A mother has said she doubts the Audi driver who struck and killed her daughter in Spain would ever be caught.
Nicola Johnson, 18, of Chigwell in Essex, was just inches from safety when she was hit by a car outside Marbella in July 2011.
An inquest in Chelmsford heard she died later that day of a severe head injury at a hospital in Malaga.
Her devastated mother, Sue Johnson, 54, has called for safety improvements on the road where she died.
Essex and Thurrock Coroner Caroline Beasley-Murray was told Miss Johnson, who had just finished her A-levels, was walking back from a night out with a friend when she was hit by an Audi TT car.
The inquest was told the driver of the Audi, who drove off after the crash on the A-7 Cadiz to Barcelona dual carriageway, was never caught.
It also heard how police in Spain had visited car dealers in the area asking them whether anybody had brought in a damaged vehicle.
Mrs Johnson, however, told the coroner she felt the police should have widened the search. It is understood the police investigation has closed.
'Do something about it'
Miss Johnson's friend heard a noise and when she looked around she saw the teenager on the ground. She was just 50 yards from a footbridge.
Speaking after the inquest, where a verdict of death as a result of a road traffic accident was recorded, Mrs Johnson, 54, said the location of her daughter's death was a well known accident blackspot.
"I don't understand why the authorities in Spain don't do something about it," she said.
"I know she was silly not using the footbridge but that car must have been going 50 or 60 miles an hour to wallop her like that against a lamppost."
Mrs Johnson, who is deputy head teacher at Oaklands School in Loughton, said the police, who had the front grille of the vehicle in their possession after the collision, could and should have done more to track the motorist involved.
"Surely the person who hit Nicola knows that they hit Nicola and probably knows they killed her," said Mrs Johnson.
She told how Miss Johnson had secured bar work in Marbella which would have started the week after her death.
The 18-year-old, who had been a student at Epping Forest College, died before receiving her A-level results. She got an A and two B grades and would have been able to take up her place at university to study journalism.
"She was the apple of my eye and I loved her to bits," Mrs Johnson said.