Tributes and teddy laid outside church as Sheffield mum and three children killed in crash

Church-going mum-of-four, Zoe Powell, died with three of her children in a collision with a lorry on Monday night.

The 29-year-old lost her life with daughters Phoebe, eight, Amelia, four, and six-year-old son Simeon when the family’s Subaru people carrier was involved in a collision with a heavy goods vehicle on the A40, Oxford.

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Zoe’s 30-year-old husband, Josh, and their youngest daughter survived but remain in hospital in a critical condition.

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Mr and Mrs Powell and their oldest child moved from Sheffield to the village of Chinnor in Oxfordshire in 2014.

The younger three children were later born there.

Rev Dr Jacky Barr, from St Andrew’s Church in Chinnor, where Mrs Powell and her family were members of the congregation, said the tragedy was a ‘loss to us all in the area’.

She said: “They used to come to our church. Zoe and her children would come along to one of our after-school sessions.

“They were just a delightful family. The children were always very engaging.

“They were just a lovely family, they really were.

“This has come as such a shock and loss to us all in the area.”

A friend and neighbour said the ‘whole family would do anything for anybody’.

The woman, who asked not to be named, said: “She (Mrs Powell) was amazing, a great neighbour and a lovely person.

“She did a lot for the community, not just through the church.

“The whole family would do anything for anybody.

“I just can’t believe what’s happened, I’m too upset to talk any more about it really.”

Zoe described herself online as a ‘wife, mama, maker’.

She regularly updated a parenting blog until May 2019 ahead of the arrival of her fourth child.

She sold journals, prints, cards and weavings she designed herself online.

Senior Investigating Officer Sergeant Dominic Mahon, of Thames Valley Police’s serious collision investigation unit, said officers were in the very early stages of the investigation into what he described as an ‘incredibly tragic’ and ‘horrendous’ incident.

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