Married couple Tom and Georgina Daniels were passengers in a taxi which was involved in the crash where four people died
16:32, 17 Jan 2026Updated 17:08, 17 Jan 2026
Georgina and Tom Daniels, who were left gravely injured in a crash that killed four people in Bolton(Image: Tom and Georgina Daniels/GoFundMe)
The survivors of the horrific crash that killed four people in Bolton have bravely spoken for the first time.
A taxi driver and three teenagers’ lives were lost in the devastating collision in the early hours of Sunday morning, January 11. Four other passengers who were travelling in the taxi at the time of the crash, at around 12.45am on Wigan Road, were left with serious injuries and rushed to hospital.
Among them was Georgina Daniels, 28. “I can’t fathom how we’re all still alive – it should have taken our lives,” she told the Manchester Evening News, through tears in her hospital bed.
“I have no idea how we’re all still here after seeing what happened to everyone and the state we are all in.” Alongside her in the taxi – and now in hospital – was her husband, 29-year-old sales manager Tom Daniels. Both have been left with devastating injuries.
Georgina continued: “We’re still struggling to come to terms with the fact that all the things we’re talking about and reading about are about us. It’s hard to process.
“I can’t really put into words what it was like. I’m not sure anyone can describe what that is like. The pain we’ve been in itself has been relentless, just unbearable. Our lives will never be the same again.
“We’ve got a long journey now of rehabilitation, and both of those journeys are very different.”
Tom and Georgina were married just seven months ago(Image: Tom and Georgina Daniels/GoFundMe)
The crash has come just seven months into the Bolton couple’s married lives. Now, they will have to face ‘the foreseeable future’ separately as they battle through their injuries.
Georgina’s voice wavered and tears rose up as she said: “Our wedding was only seven months ago, we’ve been together more than 10 years.
“We’ve basically always lived together – even when we didn’t have our own place, we would pack bags and stay at each other’s mum’s house for three or four days at a time.
“We’ve never been separate for too long. Now it’s our first year of marriage and we are going to have to live apart with life-changing injuries, with no end date.
“My legs are okay but my other injuries are going to need 24-hour care, but Tom now has major mobility issues, especially using stairs. We will both need 24-hour care for a long time.
“All of the recovery, rebuilding, the things we will have to get over. And we will have to do it apart. It’s cruel. There are no words to describe it.”
The couple now faces life separately ‘with no end date’ as they grapple with devastating injuries(Image: Tom and Georgina Daniels/GoFundMe)
In the aftermath of the crash, a huge emergency services presence descended on the scene, including police officers, firefighters and paramedics. A cordon was put in place and the road was closed off.
A red Seat Leon collided head-on with a Citroen C4 Picasso. The teenagers in the Seat have been named as Mohammed Jibrael Mukhtar, 18, Farhan Patel, 18 and 19-year-old Mohammed Danyaal.
An 18-year-old man, who was a passenger in the Seat, ‘remained in hospital for treatment on minor injuries’, as of Monday.
The Citroen was a taxi. Its driver, 54-year-old Masrob Ali, was the fourth person to die in the tragedy. The taxi was carrying four passengers, including Georgina and Tom.
The other passengers included two of their ‘best friends’, who do not wish to be identified, but have also been left with horrific injuries.
The group of four taxi passengers were travelling together after a party in celebration of another couple of friends, to say farewell as they embark on an adventure to Australia.
Georgina explained to the M.E.N.: “They are going on the journey of a lifetime, and we had the best night with the best group of friends, we’re all so close. It was such a good way of sending them off.
“It should have been such an exciting part of their lives, for the night to end that way it did – it’s shocking to say the least. It’s one extreme to the other.”
Now, she and her husband have been left with both traumatic injuries and memories. “Between [Tom and I], we’ve had four surgeries,” she said. It’s been a really difficult experience for all four of us [who were passengers in the taxi].
“Tom remembers bits of it, a lot of it he doesn’t remember. For some reason, I remember every single second of it.
“That’s helped with statements and explaining it to people around us. I remember it as if it was 10 minutes ago.”
Police on the scene of the fatal crash on Wigan Road in Bolton(Image: Manchester Evening News)
Of their memories, Georgina shared: “What I’ll say is that it was quite a long event, we didn’t get into ambulances quickly. I can’t fathom how we’re all still alive – it should have taken our lives.
“I have no idea how we’re all still here after seeing what happened to everyone and the state we are all in.
“The biggest shock of all is that we are all still here. It was just devastation.”
The friends of the four survivors have launched a fundraiser, desperate to help them through the unthinkable days ahead. Overnight, £17,000 was raised in donations.
As of writing on the afternoon of January 17, the page has raised £23,945 out of a £40,000 target.
Contribute to the GoFundMe here
“Our injuries are life-changing, we don’t know the extent of them yet, and they’ll require so much aftercare,” added Georgina, a manager in the NHS. “That’s why the fundraiser was made, for anything that insurance may not cover.
“We’ve had no idea what to do, it’s a situation that, unless it’s happened to you, you’re just so ignorant to what it feels like. It’s every minute of every day, it’s so hard to describe.
“As much pain as we’ve both been in, the mental side of it is one hundred times worse.
“We were in a taxi so it’s not straightforward what happens now. It could be years down the line before we come to a conclusion. Investigations can take 18 months. We’re likely to be off work over that time and have care that needs to be financially funded.
“Luckily, I say this with absolute certainty, we’ve got the best people around us. What we’ve had to do in the last week, we would have had no idea – we’ve done what we’ve been told to do.”
Mosrab Ali pictured at his daughter’s graduation(Image: MEN)
The couple paid a moving tribute to Mr Ali, their taxi driver, urging change on Britain’s roads. After Mr Ali died, his eldest daughter, Humayra described her dad as ‘the gentlest soul’. She said he had been a hard-working and devoted father.
While the brother of the teenager thought to be the driver of the Seat, Mohammed Jibrael Mukhtar, issued a public apology to the family of Mr Ali who died in the crash. In the videos, he claimed his brother was driving at around 90mph at the time of the crash and said he had made ‘a huge, huge mistake’.
He added that he had repeatedly told him to slow down while out driving.
Greater Manchester Police are continuing to investigate. On Monday, the force said the probe into the ‘terrible incident’ was in its ‘early stages’.
Georgina said: “[Mr Ali’s death is] devastating in itself. It was just a short journey and he was nothing but lovely to us.
“I have read as much as I can about him, I know he had a family, and that people really loved him.
Mohammed Jibrael Mukhtar(Image: Mail Online)
“Lives have been lost, lives have been changed. We can never take this back, it will stay with us for the rest of our lives.”
The Manchester Evening News revealed last week how a clip of a driver going at speeds of more than 120mph on a built-up street is forming part of the probe into the fatal crash. It appears to show a car travelling at high-speed down a busy street, with the driver overtaking other cars and veering onto the wrong side of the road.
It is believed to have been filmed by an occupant of the Seat Leon involved in the fatal crash in Bolton, just shy of 24 hours after it was captured.
Georgina added: “There needs to be road safety realisations, but that should have been done much earlier. This kind of danger can’t just be acceptable, where you just say ‘watch out.
“When people drive like that, it’s done for attention and status. It needs to be that, collectively, everyone doesn’t give it any attention or status. It just needs to be that it doesn’t happen.”
For now, the Daniels, and their two friends who were also passengers, remain in hospital – their futures ‘changing by the minute’.
Georgina said: “[Our outcome] changes every single minute. We have both got so many different injuries, we can’t make one decision without looking at the rest.
“We have no expectations, we are just living hour by hour.
We are trying to be positive and trying to get back to how we were in those pictures. That’s the only thing we can look forward to.”
If you would like to contribute, head to the GoFundMe here.