Lacey Bell was just three-years-old when she was run over by a van being driven by her father, Richard Bell.
It is believed Lacey had followed her dad outside before she was killed in the "freak accident" that Assistant Coroner Sally Hatfield said “could not have been prevented”.
Talking to an inquest about that horrendous day in February, Richard from Burnage, Manchester, explained how he had initially thought he’d run over a doll or a toy.
“When I was leaving I didn’t see Lacey, I didn’t look for her I just didn’t see her – I simply didn’t know she was there. I went round the front of the van and got in and I looked in the road to see if anything was coming and it wasn’t,” he told the hearing.
“I drove the vehicle a few metres off the pavement and felt the wheel go over something like a brick.
“At first I thought it was a doll or a toy or something. Then I thought it might be the cat because it likes to sit in the bit above the wheel when it has been raining. I looked out the window and thought that it was too big to be a cat so maybe it was a towel.”
Describing the moment he realised it was his young daughter under the wheel, the father said he just picked her up and drove to the hospital.
“I picked her up and I got her in the van and drove as fast as I could myself but it wasn’t fast enough. I didn’t see anything, she was only little,” he heartbreakingly said.
“It is unbelievable how this has happened. We had a perfect life with baby Lacey. It was heartbreaking. It has destroyed the family, we don’t sleep at night. It burned the family and it still burns the family now.”
The inquest came to the conclusion of death by road accident, with Ms Hatfield describing it as “the most shocking accident”.
"Nothing could have been done to avoid this freak accident. It was unavoidable, and unseeable, there is no fault of anyone. Sensibly in my opinion was that it would be quicker to take her there himself."
