Girl killed as car crashes into girls’ prep school building
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A girl has been killed as a car crashed into a girls’ prep school building.
The Metropolitan Police said a woman in her 40s has been arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving after the incident at The Study Preparatory School in Camp Road, Wimbledon, south-west London, on Thursday.
In a statement, the force said: “We can now confirm that sadly a child has died following an incident where a car collided with a building at a school in Wimbledon.
“We can also confirm that the driver of the vehicle, a woman aged in her 40s, has been arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving.
“There have been further injuries and we await an update from the London Ambulance Service.”
The Met initially said seven children and two adults had been injured in the incident and the driver stopped at the scene.
Police, firefighters and paramedics, including London’s Air Ambulance, responded at around 9.54am on Thursday.
The force said the incident is not being treated as terror-related.
Wimbledon MP Stephen Hammond, whose daughter previously attended the school, told the PA news agency that several of those hurt were “critically injured”.
He said: “There are a number of people who are critically injured as I understand it and given the scale of the response from emergency services… this is a very serious incident.”
Police extended a large cordon around the school and television pictures from overhead showed the car up against the wall of the building, while firefighters and paramedics stood near a gap in the fencing at the entrance to the site.
Officers moved dog walkers and passers-by away from the scene as an air ambulance remained on the edge of the Common while a number of ambulances parked nearby.
Wimbledon resident Julie Atwood told the PA news agency: “My daughter used to go to this school. It’s a girls’ school.
“Wimbledon is like a little village. For this to happen in Wimbledon is unheard of. It’s terrible.”
A woman who answered the phone at the school replied “no comment” when contacted by the PA news agency.
Tweets from Wimbledon and Putney Commons urged the public to stay away from the area.
The school, which costs £5,565 per term, is for girls aged four to 11 and sits on Wimbledon Common, just a mile away from the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club as it hosts the world-famous tennis tournament.
