{"id":778044,"date":"2026-09-21T18:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T18:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/778044\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T18:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T18:10:10","slug":"driver-charged-over-fatal-a61-barnsley-crash-that-killed-six-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/778044\/","title":{"rendered":"Driver charged over fatal A61 Barnsley crash that killed six people"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A man has been charged with causing death by dangerous driving over a crash that killed six people, including two children.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Shannen Morgan and Shane Roller died along with two of their daughters, nine-year-old Rubie, and Lillie, four, when the family&#8217;s car collided with a motorbike on the A61 between Barnsley and Wakefield on 21 July 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Husband and wife Christopher and Janine Barton, from Barnsley, who were both travelling on the motorcycle, also died in the crash.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Christopher Cockell, 50, is due to appear at Leeds Magistrates&#8217; Court in October charged with six counts of causing death by dangerous driving.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">An inquest previously heard that the silver Ford Focus being driven by Mr Roller, 33, collided head on with the BMW motorcycle being driven by Mr Barton, 56, at about 15:50 BST between Staincross and Newmillerdam.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Wakefield Coroner&#8217;s Court heard the collision happened as the motorcycle was overtaking another vehicle on the single-carriageway road, which had a 50mph (80 km\/h) speed limit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Coroner&#8217;s support officer Phil Marr told the hearing: &#8220;As a result of a head-on impact, the car was spun to the side of the road, where it caught fire. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It was not possible to release any of the occupants and all four were pronounced dead by paramedics at the scene.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man has been charged with causing death by dangerous driving over a crash that killed six people,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":778045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-778044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=778044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/778045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=778044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=778044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=778044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}