A COMMUNITY festival held in memory of Witney schoolgirl Liberty Baker has raised £11,250 for road safety and bereavement charities.

Hundreds of people gathered on The Leys in Witney on June 27 for LibFest, to commemorate the 14-year-old Henry Box School pupil, who was knocked down by a car and killed on her way to school on June 30, last year.

Bands including Witney’s Twisted State of Mind took to the stage for the day-long festival.

Festival organiser Mike Dove said he was delighted to have raised the funds, which will be split between road safety charities Brake and RoadPeace, and SeeSaw, which supports bereaved young people.

He said: “It’s a formidable amount of money – we’re absolutely over the moon. When we organised the festival we didn’t know how much we could raise as we had never done it before, so to be able to give them a cheque for that amount of money is fantastic.”

Mr Dove and other festival organisers will present a cheque to members of the three charities on Monday at the Buttercross in Langdale Gate.

He said: “If we can do our little bit in helping prevent these kinds of tragedies then we’re going to feel we have achieved something really special.”

Mr Dove said the festival plans to set itself up as a charity in the longer term so it can continue to support road safety issues.

He said: “LibFest will be happening again – we’ve already spoken to the council and we’ve got a couple of bands lined up.”

Liberty’s father Paul Baker is campaigning with RoadPeace charity to try to make sentences tougher for those convicted of death by dangerous driving offences.

Robert Blackwell, 19, was handed a four-year jail sentence and a five-year driving ban after being convicted of death by dangerous driving at Oxford Crown Court in April.

He received a text message on his iPhone from his girlfriend shortly before the crash which prosecutors described as the “source of distraction” when he was driving.

Mr Baker said: “We’re overwhelmed with what the festival did to raise that amount of money for the three charities that helped us pick up the pieces after the tragedy we suffered.

“We would like to thank the Witney community and festival organisers and the businesses of Witney for all their donations.”

For more information about the festival visit libertybaker.co.uk/libfest.html.