The mother of a British honeymooner who died when the quad-bike he was riding on crashed into a tree on Kuredu Island Resort has called for a full investigation into the couple’s death.
Jonathan Gray and his wife Emma Gray, both 25, had been married on July 30 in West Yorkshire. They were killed a week later on August 6 at 4:00am on a Saturday morning.
Jonathan’s mother Cath Davies told the BBC she had been led to understand that the vehicle was unregistered and the driver unlicensed, and called for a full investigation to prevent such a tragedy from reoccurring.
“Somebody, somewhere, is responsible for having allowed that quad to be on the island, and those keys to be available to the young man who was unlicensed and unregistered. I’m sure I’m not mistaken, but he shouldn’t have been there,” she said.
“The lad himself, my heart goes out to him and his family because he has done something reckless and really foolish which has ended in the most tragic way possible, but he never meant for this to happen. I don’t want the responsibility to be solely his.”
The driver of the quad-bike, subsequently identified by police as Swedish national Filip Petre, a guest relations officer and son of one of the resort’s shareholders, remains in hospital in Male’ being treated for injuries he sustained during the accident.
Police Sub-Inspector Ahmed Shiyam confirmed that Petre’s was not under arrest but that his passport had been confiscated pending the outcome of the investigation, as was standard procedure in such serious cases. If Petre’s injuries required him to receive treatment outside the Maldives, “that would be a matter for our legal officers.”
Shiyam said that police had completed examining the scene of the accident and were now working to conclude the investigation as swiftly as possible.
In an emergency motion in parliament last week MDP MP ‘Reeko Moosa Manik alleged that the King Quad 700 was unregistered and Petre unlicensed to operate it.
Opposition MPs claimed that Reeko Moosa’s motion was a “personal attack” against the owner of the resort, Champa ‘Uchoo’ Mohamed Moosa, in retaliation for Champa’s television network DhiTV’s coverage of alcohol bottles found in Reeko’s car last year.
The bodies of the couple were reported to have been flown back to the UK for the funeral. Davies told the BBC that the fact the couple had been married and had enjoyed six happy years together had made the tragedy easier to endure.
“They had that day. It was perfect. Both were fantastically successful in their own lives and have their wonderful little boy. It was so perfect for them. It was almost too perfect,” she said.
The Gray’s six-month old child, Jake, will grow up “much loved by all his family,” Davies told the BBC. “He is a very happy little baby and will grow up into a wonderful man just like his father.”
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