{"id":452433,"date":"2025-09-26T09:02:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T09:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/452433\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T09:02:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T09:02:12","slug":"she-instantly-lit-up-the-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/452433\/","title":{"rendered":"‘She instantly lit up the room’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tributes for a Wetherby<\/a> mother who had the ‘friendliest and kindest soul’ have poured in online, after she died in a tragic car crash along the A1(M).<\/p>\n

Joanne Gregory, 59, was sadly involved in a fatal crash<\/a> in the early hours of Tuesday morning – suffering serious injuries in a collision near Wetherby last Friday (September, 19).<\/p>\n

Today, Joanne’s family released a touching statement, along with hundreds of other friends and relatives – all paying tribute to the ‘loving mother, wife, and sister’.<\/p>\n

Taking to Facebook, co-worker Laura Jones said: “I had the pleasure of working alongside Jo for many years. She was chatty, friendly, bubbly, and instantly lit up the room. She was taken far too soon in a senseless accident where she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I am absolutely devastated for her and her family. My deepest condolences to them.”<\/p>\n

Tyreece Smith also said they had worked with ‘Jo’ in the past, writing: “I worked with Jo when she was first employed as a librarian at Middleton Library, she was the friendliest and kindest soul, never had a bad word to say about anybody and a really pleasant person to work with.”<\/p>\n

Emma Leed said: “I was so shocked and saddened to hear of Jo’s passing this morning. She was a lovely, personable lady who loved her family dearly and talked about them often. Life is short and precious.”<\/p>\n

Joanne’s family also paid tribute to their ‘beloved’ Jo, writing: \u201cJoanne was a loving mother, wife, and sister, and a caring friend to all who knew her.<\/p>\n

“Her kindness and warmth touched so many lives. We are devastated by her loss, and her absence will leave a lasting hole in our hearts and lives forever.”<\/p>\n

West Yorkshire Police are continuing to investigate the nature of Joanne’s death.<\/p>\n

Joanne had been parked on the hard shoulder of the northbound carriageway<\/a> between junctions 45 and 46 near Wetherby, when a black Mercedes C250 hit her on Friday, September 19.<\/p>\n

The crash caused both cars to go into the middle of the carriageway<\/a>, where they came to rest. Joanne was rushed to the hospital but died during the early hours of Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

Officers from the Major Collision Enquiry Team (MCET) are continuing to appeal for witnesses to the collision, or anyone with footage which may assist this investigation.<\/p>\n

The team can be contacted on 101, or by going online<\/a> – quoting reference 13250538604.<\/p>\n

Get all the latest and breaking news in Leeds by <\/b> signing up to our newsletter here. <\/b> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tributes for a Wetherby mother who had the ‘friendliest and kindest soul’ have poured in online, after she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8814],"tags":[748,55866,393,10474,4884,152102,152103,1860,152104,16,15,20653],"class_list":{"0":"post-452433","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leeds","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-car-crash","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-fatal-crash","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-joanne-gregory","14":"tag-laura-jones","15":"tag-leeds","16":"tag-loving-mother","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-west-yorkshire-police"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115269792261046787","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}