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A cycle ride in memory of schoolgirl Hope Fennell, who died under the wheels of a lorry, turned into a sitdown protest as her grieving mother blocked a busy main road for half an hour.

Nazan Fennell, 46, whose 13-year-old daughter was killed in Kings Heath High Street in November 2011, sat down in the middle of the road where the tragedy happened – and refused to budge.

Police were called to the protest as traffic backed up, causing long tailbacks stretching along the Alcester Road. The stand-off lasted for more than half an hour as campaigners backed the defiant mum.

When officers asked Nazan to move, and pointed out that traffic was at a standstill, she replied: “So what? My life has been destroyed.”

Queensbridge School pupil Hope was trapped under the wheels of an 18-ton lorry as it pulled away from a crossing on a green light. The driver failed to spot the schoolgirl, who was crossing the road.

Lorry driver Darren Foster, from Alvaston, Derbyshire, is serving a six-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to dangerous driving and committing an act intended to pervert the course of justice.

When he was sentenced earlier this month he was told he would serve just half his sentence.

Police discovered the 38-year-old trucker had been sending text messages to his girlfriend while at the wheel. He had climbed back into his cab as Hope lay dying to delete all the texts.

Hall Green MP Roger Godsiff called the sentence “an affront” and wrote to the Attorney General, demanding that he review the lenient term.

Hope’s mother said that yesterday’s sit-down protest had not been planned but was the result of a chance encounter during the memorial event.

“A shopkeeper came out of his store as we reached the spot where Hope died,” she explained. “He was an eye-witness. He said he had been working that day, and saw a beautiful young girl lying in the road. He told me she looked at peace.

“That really affected me. I hadn’t heard that before.” Nazan went on to stand in front of a lorry similar to that which had been driven by Foster on the day her daughter died.

When protesters finally moved on, they gathered in the square outside All Saints Church, where Nazan gave a speech.

“The community has a really serious issue on its hands,” she told supporters. “There will be more people dying. Since we lost Hope I have kept campaigning in her memory – but the politicians have done nothing.”

After Foster was sentenced, Nazan told the Sunday Mercury: “He was on the phone while driving something lethal, which he knew had got the potential to kill. He made that choice, it’s like picking up a gun. Hope didn’t stand a chance.

“The fact he was not charged with Hope’s death and deleted those texts is a scandal,” she added. “He was only thinking about himself.

“I don’t know if I will recover from this. I’m devastated by the result. I don’t have a family left. I live in a haze, I live in denial that she’ll come back home.”

The Live in Hope campaign is calling for proximity sensors to be fitted to lorries so that drivers receive blind spot warnings, and for Kings Heath High Street to be made a 20mph zone.

A leaflet handed out at the rally stated: “Our campaign demands to prevent more unnecessary deaths and injuries.

“Our children’s’ lives are worth much more. We are not prepared to sit back and wait for another avoidable tragedy.”