A 13-YEAR-OLD Woodbridge High School pupil ran to her death when she tried to cross ten lanes of rush- hour motorway traffic to see her friends in South Woodford.

Roanna Richards, of Grove Hill, South Woodford, did not make it half -way across before she was hit by a car at the end of the M11 slip-road where it joins the A406.

Emergency services and an air ambulance were immediately called to the scene, but Roanna died of head injuries in King's College Hospital hours later.

Roanna Richards was just two days away from breaking up for her summer holidays as she walked home from her school in St Barnabas Road, Woodford Green, with her sister Emily, 12, for the last time.

Her mother, Susan, said that Roanna was still at home at 5.20pm on July 20 because her friend had phoned her.

She said: "She arranged to go and meet her friends at Elmhurst Gardens and there was quite a group of them down there. She couldn't wait to get down there but nobody told her to rush. Eight minutes later the first call was made to the emergency services."

Roanna decided not to use the footbridge immediately behind her house or take the slightly longer route through the dingy subway at Charlie Brown's roundabout.

In her eagerness to see her friends, Roanna made the fatal mistake of taking what she thought was the most direct route across the ten-lane A406.

Her mother said: "We were absolutely amazed that anyone should think of doing that, but we have since discovered that quite a few people attempt to cross the road at that point."

Roanna's sister Marcia, 14, says she has a friend who broke her leg trying to cross the road there last year and the south side of the A406 is now decked with flowers left by children as tributes to their lost friend, Roanna.

Among them is a message from a woman called Kim who cared for the fatally injured girl as she waited for an ambulance to arrive. It reads: "I held your hand at the roadside." Susan said: "For us to read that was particularly heartwarming."

The day after she died Roanna's family received the best school report that Roanna had achieved. Her mother spoke of a girl with a tight-knit group of friends who was starting to come into her own among a family full of talented siblings.

Even in spite of their grief, their thoughts are with the woman whose car hit their daughter.

Susan said: "She had left work early and was going home to see her son, it was one of the rare times she got off work early. The police say she was devastated and our hearts go out to her."

Roanna's family hope that in light of their daughter's death, the subway will be improved to make it a less dangerous and forbidding place.

A memorial service will be held for Roanna at St Mary's Church, South Woodford, on Wednesday, at 11.30am.

Susan said: "The service will be a celebration of her life. We would like all her friends to come because she meant as much to her friends as she did to us. They knew her so well and at 13 you don't give everything away to your parents but you do to your friends."

dyeatman@london.newsquest.co.uk