Boy, 7, and dad killed in front of mum and baby sister on way home from Christmas party

Anna-Louise and Stuart Bates were walking home in December 2015 when a car hit the father and the couple's seven year-old son, Fraser, with both dying from their injuries

A mother who lost her “Mr Wonderful” husband and seven-year-old son when they were hit by a car as they crossed the road has remembered them in a new book about the tragedy.

Couple Anna-Louise and Stuart Bates had gone to a Christmas party with their children in 2015. On their way home, Stuart and son Fraser were hit by an Alpha Romeo driven by Joshua Staples, 22. The dad was killed on impact while Fraser was rushed to hospital, but his injuries were too severe and he died.

The boy’s organs later saved the lives of four people. Staples later pleaded guilty to two counts of causing death by careless driving without due care and attention and was jailed for 16 months, WalesOnline reported.

Anna-Louise Stubbings (formerly Bates) has now written a book called Life: A Story of Believing to remember the pair. In the tome she talks about grief and navigating the days, months and years afterwards with her daughter, Elizabeth, and new husband Zach, himself fighting cancer.

She wrote: "I was holding onto the stroller with Elizabeth in it, but my friend took her from me. I looked ahead and there was Fraser, lying on the ground. I looked left, and some way away, was Stuey, also lying on the ground. There was nothing else.

“I couldn’t see a car; there was nothing other than two bodies, stretched far apart. In my head, I was running between the two of them. That’s what I remembered for so long. I didn’t know who I should be with. For years, I wondered why I did that. I struggled with it. I struggled with why I didn’t stay with my son.

“Why did I waste time running between them and therefore not helping either? I later found out that never happened. I later found out I’d stayed with Fraser throughout while some other people were with Stu.

"I do remember yelling, ‘Please! Please take care of my husband! Please look after him!’ My friend’s partner was attempting CPR and Fraser was making this strange noise. The noise – the noise of my baby trying to breathe, trying so hard."

In the years since she has set up a charity, Believe, in their memory, promoted organ donation, has fundraised, made films, documentaries and taught children and adults to have the conversation.

To Fraser, she writes: "What I wouldn't do for five more minutes with you, five more hugs with you. Instead, I'm left with an awareness that I'll spend a lifetime without them, a lifetime without you.

“My baby boy, you showed me my heart could grow, that a piece of your heart will always be with me, and that love doesn't fade or disappear. It only intensifies, it only deepens, it only finds way to show itself every day in even the smallest of things.”