A MOTHER who was injured along with her husband and nine-year-old son when an out-of-control car ploughed through safety barriers outside Aberystwyth’s Morrison’s supermarket has called for more substantial protection for shoppers.

Robert Pearson, 81, from Llanilar, drove his car through bollards near the main entrance and injured Ilona Barnes’s husband Dmitry and their son in May.

Pearson, of Gorwel, Rhos y Garth, pleaded guilty to driving without due care and attention last month, but escaped a driving ban.

The bollards protecting the pedestrianised area, which are metal rods covered by black plastic sleeves, were bent in two in the incident.

After crashing through the bollards, Pearson’s car hit a trolley carrying Ilona’s nine-year-old son and collided with her husband Dmitry, badly breaking his ankle.

“If there had been concrete bollards there, or a better barrier, we would never have been hurt or feared for our lives,” Ilona told the Cambrian News.

“The bollards are made of plastic, giving just an illusion of a safety.

“His car broke three of them without any problem.”

“If the bollards were concrete, he would have damaged his car and maybe hurt himself but the car would never have got onto the safety area outside the shop,” said Ilon, adding that her family was lucky to be alive and she had thought she “was going to die”.

A Morrisons spokesperson would only say: “The damaged metal safety bollards have been replaced.”

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