The parents of Lillian Groves have spoken of the horrifying moment their 14-year-old daughter was involved in a fatal accident and how they will never be able to forgive the man who killed her.

The lively, bubbly teenager was killed on Headley Drive, yards away from her front door on June 26, 2010. She was struck, fetching a football, by 36-year-old John Page who had been speeding up the road, showing off to a friend and his niece in a borrowed car.

Page, who was doing 43mph in a 30mph zone, was sentenced to eight months in prison on Thursday in Croydon Crown Court after he pleaded guilty to causing death by careless driving. Judge Stephen Waller told him he would serve half that time.

Gary Groves, 41, who said he had a special bond with his first born "princess" told the Croydon Guardian: "Four months for taking someone's life is just a terrible sentence. But it could have been 50 years and it still would not have changed how we feel. Nothing will bring Lillian back.

Natasha Groves, 42, said: "The thing that gets me is that in four months, he will be out of prison and able to walk back through his front door, Lillian will never walk through our door again."

The mother last saw her daughter happily playing football with her brother Olly, now 11, in their front garden at 7pm.

She remembers her teenager giving her a cheeky laugh as she watched the devoted pair through the front room window. The schoolgirl was clutching an orange football in her hands.

She said: "I turned to go out to the back garden when I heard two thuds, I turned around and started to run for the road with Gary following me. Olly was standing in the front garden, his face was red and he was just screaming and screaming.

"Lil was lying across the footpath with blood pouring from her ear."

Gary cradled her in his arms crying as he said: "Lil stay with me, please don't go." The teenager was unconscious, her parents would never see her awake again.

The Addington High School student was rushed to hospital where doctor's struggled to save her life, giving her emergency surgery to stop internal bleeding before taking her up for a brain scan.

Just after midnight on Natasha's 41st birthday, as their close family gathered at the hospital, desperate for good news, Gary and Natasha were taken into a side room and told their beloved Lillian had died.

The 42-year-old mum said the hardest thing she had to do was go and see her daughter's broken body.

As the pair broke the news to their sons Nicholas and Olly and daughter Rhiannon, the 10-year-old boy demanded to see his sister.

Natasha said: "I couldn't let him see her like that so I made a promise to him that he could see her at the chapel, after she had been made to look nice.

"I thought, what am I doing, letting my 10-year-old son see the body of his 14-year-old sister like this? But what could I do? Olly would never let me forgive him if I didn't let him see her.

"Before the funeral we went to see her and Olly asked to be left alone with her. He was in there by himself for 10 minutes. He came out with tears rolling down his face."

His family worry that the young boy blames himself for his sister's death. He was the only family member to see the accident and has flashbacks which he refuses to talk about. The 11-year-old, who is having counselling, also has trouble sleeping.

"He once announced that the family was going to have a counselling session and so we all went into the back garden and sat in a circle and Olly asked us how we were feeling.

"He asked us if we were angry with him, angry with Lillian," said Natasha.

But it is not just Olly who has been affected by the death, the entire family has been devastated by the tragedy. In an impact statement which was handed up to the judge on the day of the sentencing, Natasha wrote: "Rhiannon is an emotional wreck living day by day like the rest of us, her elder brother Nicholas has become very withdrawn within the family home often shutting himself upstairs in his bedroom not wanting to talk. He feels if he doesn’t talk about her or the accident it can't hurt him any more than he is already hurting.

"And her younger brother Oliver has been mentally and emotionally scared for life, something he will never get over. The bond between Lillian and Oliver was more solid than anything I have ever seen. She was his sister, best friend and soul mate."

Gary wrote: "The loss I now feel has left a shattered heart that can never be repaired. My little princess has been taken away from me and I don’t know how I will ever move forward from this. The actions of this one person have destroyed what used to be a close happy family."

Natasha wrote: "When Lillian died I died too. As a mother I have remembered all her firsts, from cutting her first tooth, starting school, first friendships and sleepovers, our first family holiday when she was 10-months-old, her first sleepover at Nan and Granddads which ended up with her being bought back home at 2am because she was homesick.

"Now after only 14 short years I have to remember her lasts - the last family holiday we shared, the last time I saw her happy smiling face, her last birthday June 7, the last time she went to school, the last things we did together on the June 26. This is something no parent should ever have to do. The day Lillian’s heart stopped beating so did mine."