Rumbling along public roads with an unsecured crane hanging over the side, this is the lorry that killed a young mum out pushing her toddler in a pram.

Rebecca Ableman, 30, had just visited a farm shop with her then two-year-old daughter, Autumn, when she was struck on the head and died.

Lorry driver Kevin Miller, 71, continued on his journey unaware and it wasn’t until he returned to his depot hours later that he was confronted by police who told him what had happened.

Checks showed he had failed to secure the crane to the bed of his lorry and instead attached it loosely to the 18-ton load of disused railway track he was transporting for scrap.

His load shifted during his journey on a winding road, causing the boom to swing out.

The totally avoidable death prompted Ms Ableman’s devastated partner, Chris Tuczemskyi, 27, to attack Miller’s failure to take ‘basic’ safety precautions.

Reading a victim impact statement at Peterborough Crown Court yesterday, where the driver was jailed for 13 months, he said: ‘Becky died because basic safety measures were not taken.

‘A £10 ratchet strap could have prevented this.’

The loose crane that driver Kevin Miller, 71, left hanging over the edge of his lorry is highlighted in the circle

Miller’s shocking lax attitude to safety happened despite industry body the Association of Lorry Loaders Manufacturers and Importers launching a campaign in February 2022 – just seven months before Miller’s fateful journey – called ‘Strap down your loader crane’.

Ms Ableman was near her home in the Cambridgeshire village of Willingham when she received the blow from behind on September 22, 2022.

The mental healthcare assistant was flown to hospital by air ambulance with catastrophic head and brain injuries but died just over three weeks later when her life support was turned off.

Her sisters Natalie and Christina revealed her heroism in their impact statement yesterday, saying: ‘Her last act was to push the pram out of the way, taking the force herself and saving her child.’

The defendant, of King’s Lynn, Norfolk, was due to go on trial in February for causing death by dangerous driving.

But the prosecution accepted an alternative charge he admitted of causing death by careless driving, following consultations with expert witnesses and Mrs Ableman’s family.

The court heard yesterday how Miller had set out from his depot at King’s Lynn at 3.50am and had driven to a Network Rail depot in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, to pick up his load of scrap rails.

He left the depot at around 8.30am, heading back north and going down the B1050 country road through Willingham because traffic was heavy on his usual route.

Miller failed to use a £10 strap that would have kept the crane in place and avoided the tragedy

Rebecca Ableman, 30, was pushing her daughter, August, in a pram when she received the fatal head injury

Miller remained unaware that the crane had left Ms Ableman with unsurvivable head injuries as he carried on with his run

Prosecutor William Carter said: ‘As he went through Willingham, the boom on his loader crane slewed to the near side. That left it in the position, which we can see on CCTV, where the crane grab can be seen overhanging the nearside of the lorry.’

He said that Miller had ‘failed to adequately secure the boom on his crane, which amounted to carelessness’ and which ‘fell below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver’.

‘It was that which led to Rebecca’s death because leaving it unsecured enabled it to slew from the lorry trailer and it ended up sticking out over the pavement in a position to strike Rebecca on the back of her head, causing her death,’ Mr Carter added.

‘The route he was taking on the B1050 was not the route he regularly used. It meant he was travelling along a road which was not straight and flat. He had to negotiate a number of roundabouts and brake a number of times.’

Mr Carter told the court the crane boom was jutting out for between 30 and 40 seconds before the collision on the 30mph limit road.

Miller ‘drove on apparently completely unaware that anything untoward had happened’, with the crane still hanging off his trailer.

Once he had driven through Willingham, he spotted in his mirror that the crane had moved and pulled over to mechanically move it back into place.

He then carried on his journey, stopping at March to drop off his load before returning to his yard in King’s Lynn where police were waiting to speak to him after identifying his lorry from CCTV.

Ms Ableman was hailed a hero by her sisters, who said: ‘Her last act was to push the pram out of the way, taking the force herself and saving her child.’

Ms Ableman, pictured with August and partner Chris Tuczemskyi, 27

Miller was jailed for 13 months at Peterborough Crown Court

Mr Carter said: ‘He had not taken what the Crown say was an elementary precaution by strapping the boom down to the trailer itself.

‘All that was required was further strapping which could be thrown over the boom and tightened but he had not done that.’

As he was arrested, Miller protested: ‘What happened mate? I ain’t hit no one mate.’

The defendant insisted he had always secured the crane the same way by attaching it to his load, thinking that its hydraulics were sufficient to keep it in position.

He also claimed he had been stopped routinely by vehicle inspectors and had never been told that the crane should be strapped down separately.

But Mr Carter said: ‘The prosecution say that, self-evidently, this method of securing the crane and boom was inadequate.’

Experts found that Miller’s crane was also dangerous and beyond economic repair, with defects present prior to the collision, ‘suggesting there had been ‘a sustained period where little or no maintenance had been carried out’.

An overload safety system had been overridden, there were cracks in the chassis and bolts holding the crane down were in poor condition, with no locks on stabilisers which were ‘pinned awkwardly’.

An emergency stop button was also not working and hydraulic hoses and pipes were in an ‘appalling’ condition.

Mr Carter said there was also ‘excessive play’ in the slew, which may have contributed to excessive movement of the loader crane during travel, particularly when cornering.

John Dye, defending, called for Miller to be given a suspended sentence, saying he had been devastated by ‘the harm caused to the Ableman family’.

But sentencing Miller, Judge Matthew Lowe said: ‘This defendant’s criminal failure to adequately secure the crane is the cause of Rebecca’s death.

‘To have secured the crane unit would have been the work of a moment. This tragedy could so easily have been avoided.’

The judge, who imposed a two-year driving ban to start in six-and-a-half months to coincide with Miller’s expected release from prison, also criticised the defendant’s ‘slipshod attitude to maintenance’.

Paying tribute to his partner shortly after her death, Mr Tuczemskyi, 37, said: ‘To me, she was my light in the darkest of nights, my rock for when I stumbled and my best friend.

‘She made me a better person, she pushed me to be and do better because she could see my potential when I could not.’

Mr Tuczemskyi started a fundraising page on GoFundMe in memory of his partner, who worked in a mental health hospital in Cambridge, with funds going to East Anglian Air Ambulance and Addenbrooke’s Neuro ICU.

He was also raising funds for Autumn to explore the world and create a memorial bench for her late mother.

She had her first day at Willingham Primary School in September 2024.