A TWO-YEAR-OLD girl died after being hit by a car in a low-speed collision, an inquest heard.

Bethany Wood was out playing on June 30 last year when she was struck by a Citroen Saxo.

The tragedy happened in Wilkes Avenue, Leasowe, as driver Lisa Berry returned from a shopping trip with her friend, her partner and her daughter, at around 2.20pm that afternoon.

In a statement given by Miss Berry, and read by coroner’s officer Donald Johnston, yesterday’s inquest at Wallasey Town Hall heard: “I started screaming and took my hands off the wheel and my feet off the pedals.

“I didn’t know what I would have done if I could have done anything, I just started screaming.”

The front of the Saxo struck Bethany at around 10mph, and she was pulled under the car, before it rolled up a kerb and onto the grass verge.

The little girl, who would have been three a fortnight later, was left lying on the road behind the car.

Miss Berry’s partner, Malcolm Mawdsley, said in his statement: “I realised there was someone on the road and then I saw a very young girl lying on the road and behind the car.

“She wasn’t moving, apart from her head.”

An ambulance was called, and Bethany was taken to Arrowe Park Hospital where she later died.

A post-mortem examination, carried out by Dr George Kokai, consultant paediatric pathologist at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, found Bethany’s liver was ruptured, leading to internal bleeding, which was the cause of her death.

Acting on behalf of Bethany’s family, barrister Peter Gregory asked Dr Kokai: “If the child’s body was over-run by one or more of the wheels of the car, would that be to your mind the most obvious explanation for a ruptured liver?”

Dr Kokai said “Yes”.

One witness, John Ward, told the inquest that the car “carried on for six to 10 feet” before stopping.

Another, Stephen Malone, added: “The car didn’t seem to brake at all, and took a while before it stopped.”

PC James Martindale, of the Collision Investigation Unit, on Smithdown Road, said: “I’ve reason to believe that, had there been any effects of braking at the moment of impact, Bethany would have been projected forward to land on the road surface.”

Coroner Christopher Johnson recorded a verdict of accidental death.