A DEVASTATED mother has said "the law stinks" after the farmer who knocked down and killed her seven-year-old son walked free from court.

Joanne Taylor, 31, of Burnley Road, Colne, said she felt let down by the sentence handed to farmer Stephen Crossley, 42, who was at the wheel of a tipper truck when he hit Gary Ormerod as he walked over a pelican crossing.

Crossley, of Burnley Road, Trawden, was given 100 hours community service and was banned from driving for two years by Judge Raymond Bennett at Burnley Crown Court on Friday after admitting causing death by dangerous driving.

The court heard how after the accident, which happened as Gary and his brother returned to their Burnley Road home from a nearby shop after school, his mother Joanne Taylor had visited the defendant and the pair had had a cup of tea and wept together.

Judge Bennett said he had read very many letters from friends and employers who spoke of Crossley in every respect as a "splendid" man and who felt great sorrow at what had happened.

But today Joanne said: "The law stinks. I could rob a mobile phone off the streets and get the same sentence but he has killed a seven-year-old and has to live with that all his life."

Despite her anger Joanne, a mother-of-three boys Sean, 11, Cameron, 10, and Bradley, eight, met Crossley at his house.

She said: " A couple of weeks after it happened I needed to know who had done this.

"I have not forgiven him. I am just not a nasty woman. You cannot show the children hate.

"You have got to bring them up right. You have got to show to them that you take people for who they are not for what they have done."

The court heard how Crossley was driving the truck when he took his eyes off the road for at least five seconds. He failed to see a bus in front of him slowing, nor the crossing lights turning to red on Burnley Road, Colne, last October.

He swerved to avoid hitting the bus, crossed the road, braked and hit Gary.

Cameron, who was crossing the road with his little brother at the time, has never spoken to his mother about what he saw on that tragic day.

Joanne said: "We try to make it as normal as possible, especially for Cameron, if I see him looking sad I try to make him smile and they do the same for me.

"I think when I am buying trainers I should be buying four pairs not three and when I am making pack lunches I think I should be making four not three.

"Gary was well funny. When the others had gone to school I had a full year with him to myself. We had a great year."

Crossley, himself a father of a young child, is now said to be suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, with anxiety, depression, poor sleep and flashbacks.

He wiped away tears as Judge Bennett told him the starting point for what he had done was jail but that he was satisfied he need not send him to custody.

Joanne, who has lived in Colne all her life, still lives by the busy road where the accident happened.

She said: "Everyday I would get the children back safely across the road. You think it is safe, it has got a pedestrian crossing. Then one day you don't. I think about him every day."