Funeral service in Glasgow for family in bin lorry crash

A funeral service for three members of the same family who were killed in a bin lorry crash in Glasgow has heard how their loved ones have suffered "tragedy on tragedy and sadness on sadness".

Up to 1,000 mourners joined together to pay a final tribute to teenager Erin McQuade and her grandparents Jack Sweeney (68) and Lorraine Sweeney (69).

The three were on a Christmas shopping trip when an out-of-control refuse vehicle crashed into pedestrians in Glasgow city centre on December 22nd, 2014.

Jacqueline McQuade is thought to have gone to withdraw money from a cash machine when her 18-year-old daughter and parents, all from Dumbarton in Scotland, were fatally injured.

Mourners packed in to St Patrick’s RC Church in Dumbarton, for a joint requiem mass for the teenager and her grandparents, with hundreds more standing outside.

Erin’s brothers Liam (15), Aiden (14) and six-year-old sister Niamh, were all at the service, with their mother Jacqueline (43) and their father Matthew (49).

Glasgow City Council leader Gordon Matheson, Scottish justice secretary Michael Matheson and Jackie Baillie, the Labour MSP for Dumbarton, were also among the mourners.

Six people were killed and 10 more injured after the lorry lost control in the city’s Queen Street and George Square area .

The private church service was led by Archbishop Philip Tartaglia, the Archbishop of Glasgow, who previously told a memorial mass that he wept with the woman who saw her teenage daughter and both parents die almost in front of her.

Archbishop Tartaglia said during the funeral service that Jack and Lorraine had been “responsible for creating a loving family who were very close to each other.”

“Their last day on this earth said it all. Jack and Lorraine, Jacqueline and Erin went on a Christmas shopping trip. Three generations of the same loving family.

“They died as they lived - together. It is fitting that they should share the same funeral mass. They will be buried in the same grave.”

After the service ended, the family members carried the three coffins to three hearses waiting outside the church.

Primary school teacher Stephenie Tait (29), tax worker Jacqueline Morton (51) [both from Glasgow] and Gillian Ewing (52) from Edinburgh were also killed when the council lorry mounted the pavement before crashing into the side of the Millenium Hotel.

Three patients remain in hospital following the crash.

A 14-year-old girl and a 64-year-old woman are in stable conditions at the Royal Infirmary. A 57-year-old man, thought to be the driver, is in a stable condition at the Western Infirmary.

Investigations into the crash are continuing.

PA