By Liz Fowler

A Mearns man has been killed and his partner’s 13-year-old daughter seriously injured after a horrific three-car pile-up near Hereford.

Fifty-year-old Philip Lampkin of Tangle Ha’ near St Cyrus died at the scene of the accident.

Thirteen-year-old Beth Mackay, who was a rear seat passenger in his Rover 214, was airlifted to Birmingham Children’s Hospital where her mother and brother David (18) have been keeping vigil by her bedside.

She was trapped in the rear of the car for more than an hour before the fire service could release her. She has suffered a broken neck and broken pelvis among other injuries.

Her older sister Katie (16), who was also a passenger in the car, was taken to Hereford County Hospital and detained for 36 hours for treatment for a broken hand and cuts and bruising.

The tragedy happened after a family trip south for the Glastonbury festival. Mr Lampkin and the two girls were heading for Wales to visit his brother Nic and his family, while his partner Val and their seven-year-old daughter Tamsyn went to London to visit her sister.

An artist and craftsman, Mr Lampkin became heavily involved in the past decade in social issues, working for both Angus and Aberdeenshire councils.

He became a member of the Angus Children’s Panel, and community service supervisor with Angus Council, work he continued latterly from a base in Stonehaven for Aberdeenshire Council.

He settled at Tangle Ha’, where he built his own home for his family, 20 years ago.

Born in Staffordshire, the eldest of three brothers and a sister, he was brought up in Kenya, where his parents, who were animal breeding scientists, ran a research programme.

By the time he had completed his secondary education at boarding school in England, the family had returned to Scotland and he set up an arts and crafts business in Edinburgh, and also did landscape work.

He came to the Mearns in 1980 to work as a maintenance builder with the former Camphill community for adolescents with special needs at Templehill at Auchenblae, where he met his former partner Amanda Armitage, a co-worker from Norfolk.

He then started in business selling prints he made from his own paintings and home-made jewellery, eventually acquiring in 1989 a retail outlet trading as Workshop 125 in Murray Street, Montrose.

As the business expanded to larger premises in Murray Street, he also launched Montrose and District Community Action, a self-help charity group dedicated to providing support and employment for adults with mental health problems.

He was credited nationally as an inspiration to others when, with support from Angus Environmental Trust, he launched in Montrose a then revolutionary “green” system of collecting unwanted household waste and furniture for recycling using a cart drawn by a pair of Clydesdales.

Two years ago he embarked on studies for a degree in social work from Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen.

He is survived by his son Caspar (18), a maths student at Edinburgh University and daughters Zoe (16), just days ago awarded the prize as one of the youngest ever dux of Mearns Academy in Laurencekirk, and Tamsyn, a pupil at St Cyrus Primary.

His body will be brought to Emslie Collier’s chapel of rest in Montrose at the weekend.

A spokesman for Angus Council said, “News of Philip Lampkin’s death has been met with great shock and sadness. All his colleagues within the council extend their deepest sympathy to his family.”

Paying tribute to the work he did with groups of offenders on a range of tasks in the south of the region, a spokesman for Aberdeenshire Council said, “Philip was not only a well respected and liked colleague, he was also respected and liked by the offenders he came in contact with.

“He carried particularly good work with the very vulnerable, including those with mental health problems.”