Wife of top cricket umpire killed

The wife of a top cricket umpire was killed and their son was seriously injured when their car collided with a bus yesterday.

Barrie Leadbeater was due to officiate at a match between Middlesex and Nottinghamshire at Lord's when he was told that his wife Jacqueline and son Michael had been hurt in an accident in Scholes, near Leeds.

He immediately travelled to St James' Hospital in Leeds, where the news was broken that Mrs Leadbeater had been certified dead on arrival. Michael, one of the couple's three sons, is seriously ill but stable in the hospital.

Mrs Leadbeater, who was in her late 40s, was driving a Ford Orion and her son was a passenger.

The car collided with the bus, which was empty, on Leeds Road yesterday morning. The bus then hit a wall and ended up in the garden of a house.