MUM Jackie McCord has thanked the thousands who have backed her campaign to change motoring laws after her daughter’s death at the hands of an unfit driver.

Mrs McCord spoke on two breakfast TV shows about the campaign to give police powers to keep such drivers off the roads. She thinks it would prevent accidents like the one which claimed the life of her teenage daughter, Cassie last February.

Colchester Sixth Form College student Cassie, 16, was killed after 87-year-old Colin Horsfall drove on the pavement in Head Street, Colchester, and hit her.

An inquest into her death was told last week Mr Horsfall, had missed the brake and hit the accelerator instead, twice mounting the pavement twice.

Three days earlier, police had asked him to surrender his licence after catching him driving the wrong way into the Tesco petrol station in High Woods, Colchester.

However, he refused and ignored their advice not to drive.

Yesterday, Mrs McCord appeared on ITV’s Daybreak and BBC Breakfast News, talking about her Cassie’s Law campaign.

She is pushing for a new law to allow police to temporarily seize a driver’s licence, pending court action, if they consider them unfit to drive.

The campaign, backed by the Gazette’s sister paper the Essex County Standard, has attracted the support of more than 10,000 people, who have singed a petition – with 500 adding their support since the inquest.

An e-petition on a Government website has also attracted support from a further 4,000 people.

Mrs McCord said: “I cannot tell the people who have supported the campaign how much I appreciate it.

“We need support to get the message across, so the Government changes the law.

“We do not want any family to go through what we have suffered.”

Mrs McCord thinks the new law should apply to all drivers, but the Government also needs to look again at the issue of drivers over the age of 70 and whether they should have to take a new test. At present it is down to individual drivers to decide if they are still safe.

Mrs McCord added: “It is not fair to have a situation where a family is asking their mother or father or brother or sister not to drive. Someone independent should take that responsibility from them.

“It is for everyone’s safety.”

You can back the Cassie’s Law campaign by e-mailing your name and address to ecs .letters@nqe.com or going to www.gazette-news.co.uk and searching for “Cassie’s Law”.