Devoted couple killed in car crash

Talented musician Stephen Donnelly, 26, was an associate pastor at Sheffield’s Antioch Community Church, and his 21-year-old girlfriend Mandy Gold was a church volunteer from Harthill.

They died in a fatal collision on the A14 near Naseby, Northamptonshire, on Saturday 22nd June. They were returning from a wedding.

Todd Roberts, a friend of the young couple and a senior pastor at the Antioch Community Church in Broomhall, Sheffield, paid tribute to them and said the church community was ‘terribly sad’.

He said Stephen, from Treeton in Rotherham, and Mandy, who lived with her parents in Harthill, had become a couple about a year ago and ‘loved’ sharing their Christian faith with others.

He said: “They were a devoted couple, they were besotted with each other.”

“Everybody at the church has been really shocked.”

“We are terribly sad about our loss and just trying to grieve.”

“But at the same time the great hope of the Christian faith is what the bible tells us, our true home is Heaven and that’s what all this life is preparing us for.”

“We hope that we will meet again.”

Stephen, a musician who played piano and guitar, was playing at a family wedding in Kettering before tragedy stuck.

He and Mandy were driving back to South Yorkshire together at about 11pm on Saturday night when their green Ford Ka was in collision with a light-coloured Mercedes and a red Peugeot 208.

William Wilson, 33, of Westrum Lane, Brigg, Humberside, has appeared in court in connection with the crash.

He is due to appear again next month in Northampton charged with causing death by dangerous driving, and drink driving.