A MUM pushed her daughter’s pram to safety before she was hit in the head and killed by crane equipment.

Rebecca Ableman had left a farm shop in Willingham, Cambridgeshire, when the horror unfolded.

The 30-year-old was pushing her daughter, two, on a footpath when Kevin Miller drove past in his lorry.

Peterborough Crown Court heard the crane equipment he was transporting was not secured properly and was “plainly potentially lethal”.

The metal, which was hanging over the edge of the lorry, then struck Rebecca in the head as Miller moved past her.

Miller, 71, has now been jailed for 13 months after earlier pleading guilty to causing death by careless driving.

In a victim impact statement, Rebecca’s sister Natalie Rumbold wrote: “Her last act on this earth was to push the pram away, taking the full force of the impact to save her child.”

Her dad Russell Ableman added: “Becky saved Autumn and died a hero.”

The court heard previously how Miller had been transporting scrap metal from King’s Lynn docks to two Network Rail depots in Essex and Cambridgeshire when the horror unfolded.

Thomas Butler, who was driving along the road at the time, said he had noticed the unsecured equipment.

Rebecca Ableman and her daughter, Autumn, smile while sitting outside.

He added: “[I] thought it looked horrendous and I told my wife it doesn’t look all right.”

Mr Butler told jurors he then saw a woman lying in the road and “people running all over the place”.

The court heard Miller was unaware there had been a collision until he was arrested just over two hours later.

He told police he would have stopped had he known, adding: “What’s happened mate? I ain’t hit no one.”

Rebecca suffered “very serious head and brain injuries in the September 2022 crash and died three weeks later.

Sentencing, Judge Matthew Lowe said: “This defendant’s criminal failure to adequately secure the grabber crane on his trailer, is the cause of Rebecca’s death.

He added: “To secure the crane unit would have been the work of moments.”