A dad who heard ambulance sirens and a helicopter didn't know his daughter was dying in the road just yards from his home.
NHS project manager Jennifer Dowd was out on a morning bike ride when she was hit by Lucy Ashton in Sefton Village.
Ashton, 24, was rushing to work in her Ford Focus after waking up late following a row with her boyfriend in the early hours.
READ MORE: Hit and run driver killed 'shining beacon' NHS worker
The carer said she "panicked" when she left the 31-year-old cyclist in a critical condition with "unsurvivable head injuries".
Ashton cried in the dock at Liverpool Crown Court today as heartbreaking statements were read by Ms Dowd's family, including the beloved victim's dad, Bootle's Labour MP Peter Dowd.
Mr Dowd said: "On December 14, 1988 at 10.12pm, I was in the room when Jennie was born following a traumatic birth for her and her mum, through emergency caesarean section.
"Just under 32 years later, at 2.14pm on October 6, 2020, I was in the room to witness her death following nine days of trauma for her, for all our family and her friends.
"The trauma started for Jennie when she was knocked off her bicycle on a beautiful, quiet autumn morning at around 8.30am on Sunday, September 27, 2020. And the trauma remains with us all until this day and will never go away.
"On the Sunday morning she was knocked down, I could hear emergency services' sirens and I could hear a helicopter close by, breaking the silence of that quiet morning.
"Little did I know they were on their way to help Jennie, who lay dying in the road just 100 yards from where I live.
"The idea that I was just a minute away from where she had been knocked down, deserted and left alone by the driver, injured and dying, has stayed with me ever since.
"I was so close to where she lay. Somehow I felt I had let her down. Could I have gone out? Could I have been with her? Could I have helped her?"
The grieving dad broke down in tears and gripped the lectern of the witness stand, before Judge David Aubrey, QC, reassured him that he could take his time.
Mr Dowd continued: "I tell myself that there was little I could have done to help her. But I am still haunted by doubts. I will be haunted and burdened by those thoughts until the day I die. What father, what parent, would not feel as I do?"
The 64-year-old thanked the emergency services and hospital staff for trying so hard to save his daughter, and local residents Irene and Rebecca Gilbertson, who tended to her after finding her injured in the road.
He said: "When I found out Jennie was not alone as she lay there was an immeasurable comfort to me."
Mr Dowd, who has served Merseyside as a councillor and MP for 40 years, said his daughter was "the most caring of people", ever since she was a child.
He said each summer at university she went under her own steam to a children's home in Mombasa, Kenya to look after children who had lost their parents and loved Africa so much she went to study public health in Cape Town.
Mr Dowd said: "This was her approach to life, either as a community worker knocking on doors in the cold and rain, or as an NHS member of staff working with vulnerable homeless people battling HIV and Hepatitis C.
"That selfless approach summed up Jennie. If she had had a motto it would be 'others first'. Jennie always thought of others.
"Even in death she helped people. Jennie donated a number of her organs which have enabled others to live. I am so proud of her. We are all so proud of her.
"So many people would say Jennie lit up the room. She did. This is what we will all miss. Her laugh. Her smile. Her humour. Simply her.
"The thought I will never see Jennie again is often unbearable."
Mr Dowd said the room where his daughter was born and the room in which she died at Aintree hospital were just 300 yards apart.
However, he said that short journey "belied the real limitless journey between her birth and death - a life packed out with giving which had such a positive effect on so many other people's lives".
He said: "Jennie was caring, thoughtful, selfless, funny, vivacious, beautiful, enthusiastic, admired, lovely and loving. But even those words cannot sum up what we have lost, the Jennie we will never see or hear again or what Jennie was to us - to Sam, her wife, Karen, her mum, Jenny her nan, and Chris, her brother, and all her other family and friends."
Looking towards Ashton in the dock, he said: "I want the person who was responsible for Jennie's death, by her careless actions, to know the hurt she has had on our family, friends and the loss to our wider society.
"I want her to know the Jennie we have lost. The Jennie who we will never see again. The Jennie who has gone from our lives.
"The Jennie of whom we have memories, but, however lovely they are, they are not Jennie, who we miss so much and whose captivating smile we will never see again."
Ashton, of Lunt Road, admitted causing death by careless driving and failing to stop after a crash.
Judge Aubrey, who accepted Ashton was remorseful, jailed her for 12 months, with an 18-month road ban.
He described Ms Dowd as "a shining beacon, standing for equality, diversity and fairness".
The judge said: "Her father on that quiet Sunday morning had heard sirens and a helicopter. Little did he know that they were in attendance to valiantly assist his dying daughter just 100 years away from his own home.
"He and others I accept will be haunted by sirens and helicopters for the rest of their lives."
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