THE driver of the vehicle that hit Nathan Gault and Debbie Whyte is alleged to have told her sister at the scene that she had moved the car, the fresh inquest into the deaths of the two teenagers has heard.

Yvonne Seaman was behind the wheel of a Renault Megane that struck the two Devenish College pupils as they walked home along the Croaghrim Road in Florencecourt on November 27, 2008.

During the second day of the inquest into their deaths, evidence was heard from Margaret Burleigh and Florence Graydon, who are both sisters of the driver.

In her evidence, Mrs. Burleigh told the hearing that she had arrived at the scene of the accident after receiving a call from Ms. Seaman, who was in an “awful state” and said she “had hit something or had an accident”.

During cross-examination, it was put to Mrs. Burleigh that another witness at the scene overheard Yvonne say to her that she had moved her car.

The lawyer asked: “Did Yvonne tell you she moved her car?”

Mrs. Burleigh replied: “I can’t remember.”

In her statement to police, which she gave in January 2014, Mrs. Burleigh said that, on the day in question, she was at home helping her daughter get ready for a formal.

She stated that Yvonne had called round to the house. After it emerged that her daughter had left her make-up at school, Yvonne went in her car to go and get some make-up.

Although she confirmed that a “big car” had been arranged to take her daughter and friends to the formal, Mrs. Burleigh told the inquest that her sister had “plenty of time” to get the make-up back.

When the witness was asked if there was any reason why she didn’t make a police statement until January 2014, she replied: “I was never asked.”

Mrs. Burleigh also told the inquest that she couldn’t recall anything about two phone calls to her from her sister at 5.32pm and 5.33pm on the day of the collision.

Meanwhile, in her police statement, Florence Graydon, who lived with Yvonne Seaman at the time, said that she had missed a call from Yvonne “some time in the evening”.

In her evidence to the inquest, Ms. Graydon said she had been at her mother’s all day and had left her phone in her car. She claimed that she only became aware of the missed call when she returned home that night.

Counsel for the Whyte family, Plunkett Nugent, observed that, in her evidence, there were a lot of things she said she didn’t remember or didn’t recall.

He asked Ms. Graydon: “Was your sister on the phone to you at the time of the fatal collision?”

She replied: “I wouldn’t know. My phone was out in the car.”