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Deaths
in 2001
Deaths in 2001 No details
of deaths available Deaths in 2002
No details of deaths available Click on the names below for further case details
Click on the names below for further case details
Click on the names below for further case details
Click on the names below for further case details
Click on the names below for further case details
FURTHER DETAILS OF DEATHS Christopher Pike
Christopher, a maintainence mechanic at a quarry in Gurney Slade, was crushed to death when a dumper truck he was working under fell on him. The quarry was run by a firm called Morris & Perry Ltd. The inquest was held at Eastern Somerset Coroner’s Court on 10 September 2003. A verdict of 'Accidental Death' was returned. Roger Arscott
Robert, a worker in the building industry, died after falling from scaffolding at Air Control Industries. The inquest was held at the Western Somerset Coroner’s Court sitting in Shire Hall Taunton on 10 November 2002. A verdict of 'Unlawful Killing' was returned. The jury had heard that Roger was employed by building contractor Graham Turner to remove glass panes fro the roof of Air Control Industries in Chard. working with Mr Turner and another employee, the three removed more than 50 panes but, as Roger picked up the last pane, he stumbled and, still holding the glass, fell headfirst over a scaffolding platform and dropped five metres onto concrete below. The scaffolding had been erected under the windows to prevent dust and debris falling to the floor but was used to put up polythene sheeting despite a certificate specifically stating that there should be no load on it. Health and Safety Inspector David Dean said, 'I would have expected guardrails to be put up. I do not think there is any doubt that the platform would have taken his weight, and guardrails would have stopped a person falling over the decking.' In June 2004 at Taunton Crown Court Graham Turner was fined £10,000 and was also ordered to pay £15,000 in costs. He had earlier pleaded guilty at Yeovil Magistrates Court to failing to ensure Roger's safety.
David Small
David, a self employed farmworker, was crushed to death between two lorries on a farm. The inquest was held at the Western Somerset Coroner’s Court on 20 March 2003. A verdict of 'Accidental Death' was returned. Richard Darnwell, Jamie Mitchell, Dave Cole and Rob Dunn
Richard, Jamie, Dave and Rob were the crew of a Royal Navy helicopter which went on a search mission off the coast of Cornwall. The helicopter disappeared and crashed. The men were identified from their dental records. The inquest at Eastern Somerset Coroner's Court was opened and adjourned by the coroner Tony Williams. The hearing was told that a board of inquiry had been set up by the Navy to investigate the crash. Mr Williams said the bodies could be released to the families and expressed his condolences to them. He said, 'This is an extremely difficult time. I do hope in due course we will be able to come up with answers for these families as to the circumstances surrounding the deaths of their loved ones.' He adjourned the inquest until a date was fixed. On 13 March 2009 an inquest jury, sitting at Wells, took eight hours to reach a majority 7-2 verdict of 'Accidental Death' after listening to eight days of evidence. A separate verdict was returned for each victim. Coroner Tony Williams announced that he would write to Ministry of Defence chiefs to make them aware of his own feelings about the absence of any voice cockpit recorders or data recorders which left a void in the information available to the hearing. 'A voice cockpit recorder or data recorder might have shed some light on what happened,' he said. 'Having data recorded from such equipment might assist any future investigations that may take place.' He told the families that while he was sorry he could not give them all the answers they wanted, he hoped the proceedings had been helpful and provided a very public arena for the facts. The Lynx, based at RNAS Yeovilton, had embarked on board HMS Portland and had been taking part in anti-submarine exercises with other ships and aircraft over three weeks. During refuelling on the deck of Portland, reports of a man overboard reached them from HMS Montrose, where two ratings had heard screams. The Lynx was deployed to a search-and-rescue role with a life-raft, flares and a winch. Lt Cole, who had not flown that day, made a last-minute decision to join the mission after it was realised the medical assistant called to take part had no night flight experience. But the helicopter failed to make a routine check-in call, required every 20 minutes between the helicopter and ship to confirm status and position. Less than a minute after the last radio message was heard from the helicopter, it disappeared from radar screens No-one saw what happened and the absence of a data recorder and a voice recorder in the cockpit meant that no-one heard what had happened. The inquest was told it appeared the crew had started crash checks with the engine condition levers in idle position, but no-one would know why they had done so. A two-and-a-half-year investigation by the Royal Navy Flight Safety and Accident Centre could find no major faults that would have caused the aircraft to crash and a Board of Inquiry was also unable to reach any conclusions.
David Cairns
David, a contract manager and engineer was called to the Exchange in Bristol Road to investigate a problem with the air conditioning on the roof. He died from multiple injuries after a fall. The inquest was held at the Western Somerset Coroner’s Court on 20 June 2005 and returned a narrative verdict. The inquest jury saw a police video which showed there was no safety sign on the door leading from the gym to the roof, a puddle of water on the floor and blocks of wood under the metal gantry. The coroner Michael Rose said there was a labyrinth of companies involved in the case and there was a possibility of impending civil action. The jury returned a narrative verdict, read by the foreman, 'The deceased was working on a gantry at Express Park when he descended a ladder. It was attached to the structure, was not fixed to the flat roof below and therefore not entirely secure. The deceased either fell from the ladder or stepped back and lost his balance when he touched the roof and consequently fell over a precipice and onto the pavement 30ft below.' The jury also made a string of recommendations including: employees should be briefed on working with hazards; they should be trained and know how to use safety equipment in a working environment; no one should work alone on the roof. Patrick Coughlan
Patrick, a forklift driver from Frome, died at home on Sunday 24 April. On Friday 22 April he had, according to a colleague, cut himself at work in Uniq's factory in Evercreech. The company refuted any suggestions that the death was in any way linked to the cut he sustained at work. The inquest was held at the Eastern Somerset Coroner’s Court and returned a verdict of death by 'Natural Causes'. Catherine Gilbey
Catherine was thrown from her horse, knocked unconscious and drowned in a foot of water on her first day working full-time at a local stables. An inquest at Eastern Somerset Coroner's Court was held on October 1 2007. Catherine had been a keen rider since the age of five and had been out riding with the owner of the stables, Rosemary Vickery, on her first day of work, the inquest was told. Mrs Vickery returned after 15 minutes because her horse was playing up and Miss Gilbey's horse returned shortly afterwards without her rider. While Mrs Vickery tended to wounds on the left side of the horse, her husband, Leonard, and his business partner went to look for Catherine. Mr Vickery found a disturbed area on the side of the road between North Barrow and Foddington. He moved closer and found Miss Gilbey's body lying face down in water in a ditch on the side of the road at around 10.20am. Catherine was pronounced dead by paramedics at the scene 20 minutes later. Mrs Vickery ran the stables for 20 years and now owns one in Ilminster. She described the horse Miss Gilbey was riding, The Gilly Smith, as a lovely horse which was good with traffic. She said, 'Before the incident Catie had visited the stables four times before being offered a job which she started on the day of her death. I went out with Catie for about 15 minutes but returned because my horse was not quite sound.' Corner Tony Williams told the jury they should consider one of two verdicts - accidental death and an open verdict. They returned a verdict of 'Accidental Death'. Petar Filipovski
Petar, a farmworker, was found dead under a pile of straw bales at a farm near Frome during gales that swept the UK. Petar, a qualified vet and originally from Macedonia, was discovered by John and David Helliar after they investigated the collapsed stack at their farm in Friggle Street. Earlier in the day, the worker had been feeding calves in a calf house opposite the Dutch barn where the straw bales, each weighing 50 stone, were stacked five high. The calf feed, brought to the barn in bags every week, had been kept against the stack to protect it from the wind and rain. An inquest at Eastern Somerset Coroner's Court held in Wells in November 2007 was told that a post-mortem report revealed Petar had died from asphyxiation due to compression. Health and Safety inspector James Makin told the hearing that, following his investigations, he had no reason to suspect anything other than the strong wind was responsible. He said the barn had been open on all sides except for a six-foot concrete wall at one end and the wind that day would have been blowing towards the end of the barn where the straw was stacked. He said, 'It appears a strong gust of wind caught the end of the stack causing some of the bales to fall just as Mr Filipovski was collecting a bag of animal feed from underneath. Mr Makin added wind data for that day had shown the wind blowing at an average of 40 miles per hour with gusts of between 63 and 76 miles per hour. He explained to the inquest that the height of the stack had been within Health and Safety guidelines which allowed for similar bales to be stacked up to eight bails high. He said he had been satisfied from looking at the remaining bales they were in good condition and that the stacking system was safe. But he added, 'If there is a lesson to be learned it is that bales of straw are heavy and when they do fall they can and do cause death.' The inquest jury was told Petar had worked for the Helliar Farm Partnership since March 2006 as part of an international student exchange which had been due to last two years. His veterinary qualifications were not recognised in the UK and so he had been gaining first-hand experience dealing with livestock at the farm. The partnership has three farms in the Friggle Street area near Frome with a 300-strong dairy herd. Petar, who lived in a mobile home with his wife Rositza, would start his day at 5.30am by helping milk the cows before having breakfast and then going on to other farm jobs, including looking after the calves. That morning he had been asked to feed the calves as well as lay clean straw for them. The inquest heard the farm's co-owner, David Helliar, had been alerted to something wrong when he had returned to Elliots Farm after working elsewhere on the farm to find the calves out and some of them wandering up the track. He said he had tried unsuccessfully to contact Mr Filipovski by mobile phone and had rung for help from his father and mother. As they were arriving, Mr Helliar senior noticed the large straw bales in the dutch barn had fallen down and the alarm was raised shortly afterwards. East Somerset Coroner Tony Williams was told Mr Helliar senior had immediately driven to one of the farms to change attachments to a JCB so that they could remove the bales from on top of Petar, but by the time they had moved them they could not find a pulse. The jury returned a verdict of 'Accidental Death' but added that a contributing factor was the storage of animal feed close to the base of a potentially unstable pile of large straw bales.
Neal Webber
Neal died in an incident at Whatley Quarry when he was buried under limestone dust. Neal was cleaning out a 30-tonne storage bin, where materials are Neal was working for Quarry Maintenance Service Engineering, a contractor which carries out a range of routine maintenance tasks both for Hanson at Whatley and for other operators at neighbouring Mendip quarries. An inquest was to be held at Eastern Somerset Coroner's Court. Martin Coomber
Martin, a community nurse, died on duty when his car collided with a van in Glastonbury. An inquest at Eastern Somerset Coroner's Court was held in October 2008. A verdict of 'Accidental Death' was returned. Painkilling and sedative drugs morphine and midazalan were found in his bloodstream, and one empty ampule of diamorphine hydrochloride and of midazalan were found in the passenger door pocket of his car, together with syringes and needles. Coroner Tony Williams said he was concerned about arrangements for identifying and tracking the use of individual doses of drugs that might be administered to a patient in their home and would write to the trust and to the Department of Health to voice his concerns. The inquest heard that Martin suffered from severe chronic pain from an old elbow injury. The two drugs he had used are given together as sedatives or painkillers and could impair driving. There was nothing to suggest that Martin was using or abusing drugs and Mr Williams said, 'I think this may have been the one and only time that Mr Coomber took this medication, and he would have had no tolerance to it.' Mr Williams said the drugs had played at least a partial role. he Trust said it would give a comprehensive response to any questions submitted, but also emphasised that it has comprehensive policies and procedures on the handling and administration of medicines to patients and district nurses themselves have professional codes of conduct that they were required to adhere to.
Dennis Clothier
Dennis, a farmer, died after becoming trapped underneath a part of his own tractor. He may have been hit by the hydraulic arm of the tractor. An inquest was to be held at Eastern Somerset Coroner's Court |
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