Facebook hit-and-run appeal goes viral: You won't get away with this, vows injured boy's mum

Ashley Barrs was hit by a white Audi in Wednesfield and left for dead as he lay unconscious on the road.

Now his mother, Jane Keates, has turned to Facebook to try to track down the person responsible.

She posted on the social media site: "Could you all pls share this my Ashley Barrs was in a hit and run. We need to find the b****** driver, it was a white Audi on Neachells lane Wednesfield Wolverhampton."

Since then her post has gone viral and has 167,840 shares at the time of writing.

She said she has been overwhelmed by the support her and Ashley have received and that she is confident that Facebook, not the police, will help catch the person responsible.

"Its quite shocked me all of this," she said. "When it happened I was hoping someone round my area would have seen the same car so what I did was take a picture of his face and put it on Facebook and asked if anyone knew who this person was as he had just left my son for dead.

"Next thing I know its just gone everywhere, reaching different countries, so many shares, then obviously I've had all the publicity and everything.

"The support of everyone has been great, its been amazing, I didn't think there would be that many people who would show the care and that but there has been and I'm really surprised at how it's all turned out, how much help we've had.

"People are interested and trying to help us find the person who did this. So hopefully, with a bit of luck, we'll catch them. I think Facebook will end up finding them, not the police."

But it's not been all positive messages for Jane, as she admitted she has had 'sickos' messaging her calling her 'hot' and claiming to know Mike Tyson.

She said: "I've had some stupid messages. People sending me stuff like 'you're hot' and 'your b***s are massive'.

"I'm like what has this got to do with finding who did this to my son? If they carry on I'm going to have to say something. You don't say stuff like that.

"There was another one which said they've got family who work for the Russian Mafia and they can send someone down to find this person. I was just thinking are you for real? This isn't a laughing matter, it's horrible.

"I then had another saying 'I'm a friend of Mike Tyson's'. These are the kind of messages I've had already, which is sick. I just ignore them, what else can you do really? If that makes them feel better by posting these messages then oh well, sickos.

"It got to me at first but my partner turned round and said 'take no notice of them, they're evil' so I try and ignore them and focus on the positives now. You're always going to get idiots posting things like that. If I see the first bit of the message looks stupid then I won't even click on and read the message.

"The day after it happened I was getting them, I was thinking at least let it sink in before you try with your stupid messages.

"You're sexy and all that. There's perverted people when it comes to stuff like this."

The hit and run happened on Thursday last week at about 6pm when Ashley was out playing football with his brother, Jaden, and friends.

Ashley said of the incident: "I remember when the ball went in the road because we were doing gentle passes and it rolled into the road. I looked left and right and there were no cars, completely clear, but then this car comes zooming on the 35mph road. They shouted Ashley and I turned around and it clipped me on the hip and threw me into the air and smashed my face on the kerb."

The 10-year-old, who plays football for Creswell Wanderers, was thrown 7ft into the air before landing face first and losing consciousness.

Miraculously, he escaped any fractures or breaks and just suffered severe bruising and swelling.

But since the incident Ashley has been struggling to sleep and is scared to leave the house and cross the road.

He said: "I've been scared, I can't even leave the house without friends or family. I'm scared of Neachells Lane because I looked left, then I looked right, there were no cars but I still got hit and hurt.

"I'm even scared when I push the button now because if it's the same person he couldn't stop because he was rushing or something. I've been shaky for a couple of days since it happened.

His mother added: "Its been a nightmare. He hasn't been able to sleep properly, none of us have really, the whole family. It's effected the family its effected everyone. Its been terrible, really bad. Every mum's worst nightmare.

"He asked me the other day 'will it all come back to me mum?' and I said well I don't know mate, it probably won't because you were knocked out. It's probably best if you don't remember it anyway, don't try and remember, just leave it because it'll disturb you even more.

"I'm just glad he's alive, no fractures or breaks which is really surprising, even the doctors were surprised about that. They said he was a really lucky boy, must have a head of steel to get away with that.

"I thought his nose was destroyed when he did it because when I first saw it it was a mess. But he hasn't broke it, he hasn't done anything."

Jane also had a message for the driver of the Audi.

She said: "You won't get away with it. Hand yourself in please, if you've got kids, nieces, nephews, sisters, brothers, you'll do the right thing. And if you've got kids of your own then you're a disgusting vile person to be honest because you can't just do that. Hand yourself in, it's everywhere now it's all over the world."

Adding: "He needs to be caught to be honest because he could do it again and again. A couple of days ago they wouldn't have known if he was here or not. How could you sit at home not knowing with that on your conscious? It's just terrible, some people don't have a heart.

"There's gotta be someone out there who knows it is. They must've gone up to someone and said I can't believe what I've done."